If you built your ain PC and bought speedy RAM, there's a good chance that RAM isn't actually running at its advertised timings. RAM volition always run at slower speeds unless you lot manually tune its timings–or enable Intel's XMP.

This option isn't available on every motherboard's BIOS, and not every stick of RAM has an XMP profile–some RAM is just designed to run at standard speeds. Only, if you congenital your own gaming estimator and bought RAM advertised with fast speeds, y'all should definitely have XMP as an selection.

What Is Intel XMP?

RAM must adhere to standard speeds set past JEDEC, the Articulation Electron Device Engineering Quango. Even if you purchase RAM advertised with specific timings that make it faster than the standard and insert it into an motherboard designed for gamers and other enthusiasts, information technology won't immediately run at those advertised speeds. It volition instead run at the standard speeds.

Withal, you lot no longer take to go into your BIOS and manually set the RAM timings value by value. Instead, the RAM y'all buy has a small amount of storage on it that provides i or two Intel "Extreme Memory Profiles." Your BIOS tin can read these profiles and automatically configure the optimal timings chosen by your RAM'south manufacturer. These volition be the RAM's advertised timings.

If you have an AMD CPU instead, you lot may be able to enable "AMP"–AMD Memory Profiles. This is AMD's version of Intel'due south XMP.

How to Check Your RAM Timings

You can bank check your RAM timings from inside Windows. Download CPU-Z, click over to the Memory tab, and y'all'll come across what timings your RAM is configured to run at. Compare the timings you lot come across here to the timings your RAM is advertised to run at. If y'all built your own PC and never enabled XMP, there'southward a expert chance your RAM timings are slower than you wait them to be.

How to Enable XMP

To enable XMP, you'll need to head into your figurer's BIOS. Restart your computer and press the appropriate key at the start of the boot process–often "Esc", "Delete", "F2", or "F10". The key may be displayed on your computer's screen during the boot-up process. If you're not sure what the appropriate key is for your computer, check your computer'south–or your motherboard's–documentation.

Poke around in the BIOS and look for an selection named "XMP". This selection may be right on the main settings screen, or information technology may be buried in an advanced screen almost your RAM. It may be in an "overclocking" options department, although information technology isn't technically overclocking.

Activate the XMP pick and select a profile. While you may see 2 separate profiles to cull from, you'll often just run across a single XMP profile you can enable. (In some cases, y'all may just have one choice to "Enable" or "Disable".)

If at that place are two profiles to cull from, they'll often be extremely similar, with 1 only having slightly tighter memory timings. You should just be able to choose "Profile 1" and be washed with this. However, you could attempt enabling each contour in plough and choosing the profile that provides yous with faster memory speeds, if you like. To do this, enable an XMP profile and look effectually your BIOS for the RAM timings to run into how they changed. You can also just boot dorsum into Windows and open CPU-Z again.

Whenever you insert RAM that's advertised with faster-than-standard speeds, just caput to the BIOS and enable XMP to ensure that RAM is actually running at those speeds. While it'due south uncomplicated, it's easy to miss–specially if you've never heard of XMP and don't know you demand to perform this actress stride.

Image Credit: Bakak HCGaming, Szorssz

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