How to Tell if You Have XMP Enabled

As I mentioned in my previous post “Seven Setup Tips for a New AMD Ryzen 3000 System“, it is important to have Extreme Memory Profiles (XMP) enabled if you want to get better memory and system performance.

This option won’t be available on most regular desktop systems or laptops from large vendors like Dell or HP. If you have a desktop system that you built from parts or you bought a desktop system from a smaller boutique vendor like iBuyPower, you should be able to go into your UEFI BIOS setup and enable XMP. This will be located in different locations depending on your motherboard, so you should read the manual to find out where it is located in your system.

After you have done this, how can you tell if it is actually enabled? There is one easy way to confirm whether XMP is enabled. You can use the free CPU-Z utility to see this information. There are two tabs in CPU-Z that are useful here.

First, the Memory tab, which shows the current DRAM Frequency in the Timings section. In Figure 1, you can see the current DRAM Frequency is 1466.4 MHz

Second, there is an SPD tab in CPU-Z that has a Part Number and a Timings Table section. Note: If you only have two of your four DIMM slots populated, you will have to switch the slot# combo-box to a populated slot, or else you won’t see any information.

In the Part Number, you should see some indication of the rated frequency of that DIMM. In my case (shown in Figure 2), the latter part of the part number says 3000C15, where the 3000 portion means 3000 MHz. You can also see XMP-2998, with a Frequency of 1499 MHz in the Timings Table section.

What you want to see is the DRAM Frequency in the Memory tab being as close as possible to the XMP Frequency on the SPD tab. The reason the current DRAM Frequency is only 1/2 of the rated frequency is because this is Double Data Rate (DDR) memory.

What you might see if XMP is not enabled is that your DRAM Frequency in the Memory tab being closer to one of the lower JEDEC Frequencies on the SPD tab. So it might be 1037 MHz or 1066 MHz, for example. You should also be aware that you probably will have to reenable XMP after you flash your BIOS to a new version.

If you have any questions about this post, please ask me here in the comments or on Twitter. I am pretty active on Twitter as GlennAlanBerry. Thanks for reading!