NVIDIA has finally announced its support for the Resizable-BAR feature on its GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards. AMD was the first to bring the feature to the consumer space with its Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology but NVIDIA is going to be the first to bring the technology to both mobile and desktop platforms.
NVIDIA Brings Resizable-BAR Support For GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs on Desktop & Notebook Platforms, Available on Both Intel & AMD PCs
NVIDIA has stated that they will be adding support for the feature through GeForce Game Ready Drivers and it will be compatible with both Intel and AMD CPU based systems. Having support on both AMD and Intel platforms might give NVIDIA an edge since AMD's solution only works with its Ryzen 5000 lineup and compatible X570 motherboards. The driver is said to launch in late February so around the same time as the availability of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.
What Platforms Support Resizable BAR?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series laptops with both Intel and AMD CPUs will support Resizable BAR starting with their release in the coming weeks. Check with each laptop manufacturer about support on particular models.
For desktop systems to get the benefits of Resizable BAR, you will need a graphics card, motherboard and graphics driver that support the feature. New GeForce RTX graphics cards starting with the GeForce RTX 3060 will have support for Resizable BAR. NVIDIA and our GPU partners are also readying VBIOS updates for existing GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards starting in March.
Additionally, NVIDIA has been working closely with Intel, AMD and major motherboard manufacturers, including ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, GIGABYTE, and MSI, to bring Resizable BAR support to a wide range of motherboards.
“Intel has been working with NVIDIA to enable Resizable BAR, an advanced PCI-Express technology, across the PC ecosystem,” said Fredrik Hamberger, GM of Premium & Enthusiast Laptop Segments at Intel. “This feature can give gamers an extra boost in gameplay FPS on Intel’s new 11th generation H/S and select 10th generation systems when paired with supported graphics cards, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs.” via NVIDIA
The technology will not require you to invest in a PCIe Gen 4 platform as it will be supported by PCIe Gen 3 too. Based on what we know so far, BAR essentially defines how much discrete GPU memory space can be mapped and today's PCs are typically limited to 256 MB of mapped memory. AMD claims that with SAM, they can access all of the GPU memory, removing any bottlenecks to allow for faster performance.
AMD themselves have shown gains of up to 11% which can put the competitive advantage to their side in AAA gaming titles over NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series. We can also expect similar gains for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 GPUs.
