ECS First Motherboard Vendor to Support AMP

ECS announced that its the first motherboard vendor to support the AMP (AMD Memory Profile) standard. Think of AMP as the companys equivalent to Intel XMP. Its certainly not the first time AMD toyed with custom SPD standards.

ECS current (by means of a BIOS update) and upcoming motherboards will feature support for AMP, a SPD custom-profile standard along the lines of Intel XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile). The standard allows memory vendors to ship their modules with tiny bits of firmware that tell the system BIOS what specifications the module is capable of, which exceed JEDEC-governed specifications. These include high DRAM clock speeds, the right DRAM timings to support it, and just the right DRAM voltages to support the two. Memory with high advertised DRAM speeds dont run at them out of the box, and require manual overclocking, which can be avoided by features such as XMP and the new AMP.

Settings related to AMP are found in similar BIOS configuration pages as Intel XMP, the M.I.B. III (system overclocking) section. AMP-certified modules will typically ship with multiple SPD profiles, some JEDEC-certified, and one or more AMP certified; again much like Intel XMP certified modules.

An interesting trivia here is that AMP isnt AMDs first attempt at custom SPD profiles. The company has had a standard known as AMD Black Edition Memory, which works in a similar way to AMP, except that you need to enable the advertised speed profile using AMDs Overdrive software. An example of such memory modules is pictured above. Interestingly, Patriot Memory is an OEM for AMD Radeon-branded memory, which is resold by tertiary partners such as VisionTek.

AMD AMP could gain relevance in the coming months, when the companys second-generation desktop APUs, codenamed "Trinity" launch, with a contingent of socket compatible FM2 motherboards. Also planned for later this year is AMDs new core-logic for socket AM3+ "Vishera" second-generation FX processors. Opportinities aplenty for the likes of ECS.