What does XMP ready mean?

[shannontreacy]

Hi,
Just joined this forum after putting together a new rig; I bought G.Skill 16GB (2x 8GB) Dual Channel Ares Series Memory Kit (DDR3 1333, 9-9-9-24, 1.5v which state that they are xmp ready, but what does "ready" mean.

When the word ready is used by companies it normally means for use in future products so does that apply to my memory kit?

I ask because when I ran bios xmp did not show up anywhere.

I have a MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) motherboard and an Intel i5 2500k processor and using windows7.

Many thanks......John

[Tradesman]

XMP stands for eXtreme Memory Profile, a standard brought out by Intel, in a nutshell, the DRAM manufacturers load 'profiles' or data, into the SPD of the DRAM sticks that contains info for a properly written BIOS to be able to take that info and load it into the sytem and it 'should' set the DRAM freq, timings, latency, voltages and CPU multiplier for you for the DRAM to work correctly. In general it works rather well, though many BIOSs are behind in their programming, especially when it comes to high density (4 and 8GB) sticks and use of high amounts of DRAM (16-64GB) which often means while much is set up correctly, you still have to manually tweak some settings. While primarily implemented on most all Intel based mobos, some AMD mobos are starting to implement it. Your mobo should have it I would think in the tweaking or OC area.

[shannontreacy]

Thanks for the quick reply but it didn't say whether or not my memory is actually xmp enabled. I know what xmp stands for but my bios does not register it as xmp nor does it show up when running cpu-z. That is why I first asked the question whether G.Skill 16GB (2x 8GB) Dual Channel Ares Series Memory Kit (DDR3 1333, 9-9-9-24, 1.5v is xmp enabled.

I thought I would try this forum first because of the question concerning the ram but I will contact MSI next, maybe I need to update my firmware bios but thanks again.

Regards.....john

[Tradesman]

Yes the Ares and all GSkill DDR3 is XMP enabled - with CPU-Z (will want one of the later versions or the newest, to see the XMP profiles(s) check the SPD tab, should appear on the right side of the settings shown, the actual memory tab will show what it is currently set for