Those who were able to purchase one of Nvidia’s new RTX 3060 graphics cards yesterday now have access to the company’s long-awaited Resizable BAR support, which is the feature PC users can enable at the BIOS-level to let the CPU and GPU talk directly to one another. This is a big deal, because that instantly helps boost game frame rates.
Support for this feature rolled out with Nvidia’s latest driver update yesterday, but only affects the RTX 3060 at this time. Nvidia said Resizable BAR support for the rest of the 30-series crew will follow in late March.
However, like AMD’s Smart Access Memory (SAM), which is just another way of saying Resizable BAR, compatibility is limited to specific CPUs and motherboards. Not everyone with an RTX 3060 will be able to enable the feature just yet.
At the moment, Nvidia’s Resizable BAR is only compatible with AMD 500-series chipsets and AMD 400-series chipsets on motherboards with AMD Zen 3 Ryzen 5000-series CPU support. Additionally, you’ll need to have an AMD Ryzen 5000-series processor to use Resizable BAR with an Nvidia graphics card. It’s not compatible with older AMD processors at the moment.
On the Intel side, compatibility includes 400-series chipsets, as well as all 11th-gen chipsets available as of Feb. 25. However, because Nvidia has been working closely with Intel to get this up and running, it seems likely that Resizable BAR will be ready to go whenever Intel releases its 11th-gen desktop CPUs and the next chipset generation; Nvidia lists the 11th-gen Core i9, i7, and i5 as being compatible, as well as Core i9, i7, i5, and i3 10th-gen CPUs.
Resizable BAR will also be compatible with motherboards from all major manufacturers, including Asus, ASRock, Colourful, EVGA, Gigabyte, and MSI. Nvidia did not say which ones specifically, but each manufacturer would have more information on their websites. Considering that 400-series chipsets are compatible, all 400-series motherboards should be compatible as well (Z490, H470, B460, and H410), but each manufacturer could decide to only enable it on certain models. Always best to double check!
I wouldn’t hold your breath for Resizable BAR to come to 300-series Intel chipsets anytime soon, either. That chipset, which supports 8th and 9th-gen CPUs, will reach its end of life by January 2022, so it’s likely Intel won’t focus on compatibility for that generation.
RTX 30-series gaming laptops also support resizable bar with Intel and AMD processors. Again, you’ll need to check with the laptop manufacturer to see if it’s supported on a certain model. The MSI GP66 Leopard, for instance, does support it.
But even if your PC checks off all those boxes, you won’t see a frame rate boost in every game, as is the case with AMD’s SAM. Right now, there are only a handful of games that support Resizable BAR with an Nvidia GPU, which include Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus, and several others.
As always, don’t forget to update your drivers, BIOS, and VBIOS so this new feature will actually work on your supported PC.