If you would like to overclock or set the speed of your RAM then XMP is the way to go. XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) is a technology made by Intel that allows you to overclock or increase the performance of your RAM. Recently, after buying some 3200mhz RAM for my own computer, I encountered an issue with the RAM not running at correct speeds, instead of running at 3200mhz, it was running at 2133MHz! I should have been getting speeds of 3200mhz, so I did some research and finally figured out how to set XMP to speed up or overclock my RAM. This is a tutorial on how to do exactly that!
Enter the BIOS to fix RAM running at Lower Speed
To change your XMP profile, you must head into your BIOS. To enter the BIOS of your PC you must hold a specific key on computer startup. To find the specific key, head to this list. Now you have found your key, press it on computer start-up and you should enter into a screen like the one below!
Change the XMP Profile
Your BIOS will most likely be different depending on who manufactured your motherboard, however, things should still be roughly the same. As you can see, on the ASUS BIOS above, you have an X.M.P Section, to change the speed of your RAM, set the XMP to a different, or to a profile if one is not already set. For most BIOS, you should not have to enter Advanced mode to change this but it may still differ, you may have to do some rooting around if you want to find the XMP profile. Not all profiles will be the correct speed, so you might have to check a few of them to get the best speeds for your RAM.
Not all computers support XMP. It depends on your Motherboard and CPU. If the CPU is Intel, it should definatly be there.
Reboot your Computer
On the BIOS, select ‘Save and Exit’ and your computer should reboot into your Operating System, if you are on Windows, check Task Manager to see your RAM speeds.
If your RAM speed is slower than it was before, then either go back and select a different profile or turn off XMP.
If your RAM is faster but still not the fastest speed, change to a different XMP profile, however if you cannot get the speed any higher, this most likely means that a part of your system (such as your CPU) is stopping your RAM getting full speeds.
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