MSI Bringing Resizable-BAR Support to HEDT Platform, Starting with TRX40, Intel to Follow

[CommanderAlex]

Summary

 

They have finally done it!!! MSI has decided to bring resizable bar, AMD's marketing for Smart Access Memory, to the HEDT platform. They will start rolling out new BIOS(s) starting with AMD's TRX40 Threadripper HEDT platform first, with plans on bringing resizable bar to Intel's HEDT, but with no information on when or what platform they will start with. MSI may bring SAM to Intel's HEDT when there is enough demand for this feature on the platform, presumably starting with X299 chipset motherboards. 

 

Quotes

Quote

Resizable-BAR (AMD Smart Access Memory) support has so far been exclusive to mainstream AMD & Intel platforms but it looks like MSI has finally brought the feature to the HEDT platform. MSI has announced new BIOS for its entire AMD TRX40 board lineup which now supports the resizable-bar feature with the Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. 

 

MSI has also mentioned that they aren't stopping at just AMD HEDT platforms and also could plan a release of the said feature on Intel's platforms though it's hard to say how early that would be right now.

Spoiler

My thoughts

I've been looking forward to resizable bar coming to the HEDT platform as it would not make sense to just have this feature on their mainstream/consumer platform for both AMD and Intel. I believe it would hurt both platforms if they did not bring this feature. I, myself, am looking forward to hopefully bring it to X299 to see if I can a performance boost that we already see on Intel's Z490 chipset platform. The gain's may be small but its free and have been included in the PCIe specifications for a long time in the server market. 

 

Source

https://wccftech.com/msi-brings-resizable-bar-amd-smart-access-memory-support-to-hedt-platform/

[TrigrH]

Not sure why they don't start with platforms that people are actually using for gaming that are still relevant (Z370, Z390, B350 and up)

[CommanderAlex]

2 hours ago, TrigrH said:

Not sure why they don't start with platforms that people are actually using for gaming that are still relevant (Z370, Z390, B350 and up)

They have said this feature has been with Haswell processors (2013) so that spec goes back a long time. I highly doubt they would go back that far and is pointless as Haswell is reaching its limits. Intel is already beginning End-of-Life for 300 series chipsets so if motherboard manufacturers can provide just one last BIOS update with resizable bar, users on that platform will benefit as well, and possibly gain loyalty. 

[igormp]

3 hours ago, TrigrH said:

Not sure why they don't start with platforms that people are actually using for gaming that are still relevant (Z370, Z390, B350 and up)

Validation and marketing. This feature has been working and being used in DCs and some workstations (specially for people that work with FPGAs) since 2017 on Linux, but you needed to know what you were doing.

 

Since they are trying to bring this to a regular consumer, they need to make sure that everything is working fine with a wide range of products, that's tiresome and it's better to spend that time/money on your current selling products, not older ones.