Terry Groth, a Product Marketing Manager at Crucial Technology, has revealed to
bit-tech during a conversation at this weekend's i33 LAN party that making DDR3 memory modules that support both EPP 2.0 and XMP is definitely possible.
However, Groth later added that having modules supporting both Nvidia's and Intel's extended memory performance profile standards "
would be a branding nightmare."
Having modules that feature both EPP 2.0 and XMP support is something that we've been wondering ever since the two technologies were introduced and it's good to know that it's possible. Sadly though, because of the brewing war between Intel and Nvidia, it's unlikely that we'll see the two standards supported on the same module.
Obviously, having two different memory performance profile standards tied to two different chipset manufacturers is not good for the consumer, because the two aren't interchangeable. And anything that the memory manufacturers can do to prevent consumer headaches, while introducing more freedom into the market is a good thing in our opinion.
Of course, these technologies aren't designed to cater for everyone – they're there for those enthusiasts that don't have the knowledge or skill to optimise memory performance in their system... and it's here where there is really growth in the market.
It'll be interesting to see if more than one memory manufacturer goes down this route, because one thing's for sure – those that do will be doing the right thing for the consumer. We need to return to the days when this industry wasn't so insistent on pushing 'platformisation' – I think when that happens, more consumers will be compelled to plan out a long-term upgrade path.
Are extended memory performance profiles something that you use and do you like the idea of them not being tied to one platform in particular? Share your thoughts
in the forums.
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