INTRODUCING CORSAIR XMP AND EXPO COMPATIBLE DUAL PROFILES

If you’re in the market to upgrade your PC or build a new system, you have a pivotal choice to make: Intel or AMD. This may not seem different to previous PC building processes, but there’s a subtle yet important difference this time around, and it’s down to memory support: specifically, AMD EXPO and Intel XMP.

Put simply, the two memory overclocking standards don’t play well together. If you buy DDR5 RAM that supports Intel XMP 3.0, that memory won’t work with an AMD platform. You’re locked into Intel’s chips unless you’re willing to buy more memory specifically for a platform change.

That’s the theory at least. In practice motherboard manufacturers have done a good job supporting both standards—XMP on AMD platforms and EXPO on some Intel ones. You can find out more about this in our article on using Intel RAM on an AMD motherboard.

Despite the work done by the motherboard manufacturers, you still want to buy the right memory for whichever platform you’re looking to build. Pick up DRAM that supports AMD EXPO for your Ryzen 7000 machine or Intel XMP Ready memory for your Core 13th and 14th generation chips.

There is some good news on this front, though: CORSAIR has started shipping memory kits that support both Intel XMP and AMD EXPO.

For example, this 32GB DOMINATOR PLATINUM RGB kit can be used with either platform. Such kits are clearly marked as AMD EXPO and Intel XMP compatible and are designed to work flawlessly with the latest platforms.

This means you are no longer locked into one platform or the other and can switch as you see fit. You can, for instance, pick up the VENGEANCE RGB 64GB for your AMD Zen 4 processor and then use that same memory later on with an Intel platform without issue, or vice versa. The best of both worlds, as it were.

We’re rolling out this dual profile DRAM with support for XMP and EXPO to select AMD EXPO DDR5 memory kits to start with, focusing on the more mainstream frequencies and performance—specifically those kits that are rated at 6,000 MT/s or slower with CAS latencies of 30 or higher. The focus here is on compatibility.

Here’s a complete list of memory kits that support both Intel XMP and AMD EXPO. If SKUs are as obtuse to you as they are for literally everyone else, we have an article to help you decode the part number and version of your CORSAIR memory. So, give it a read for some additional guidance.

CORSAIR will continue to produce Intel XMP only and AMD EXPO only memory kits. This allows CORSAIR to produce memory focused on higher frequencies and throughput than those built mainly for compatibility. Such kits are clearly marked as supporting either XMP or EXPO, but not both.

Whichever memory kits you buy you will still need to quickly pop into your UEFI/BIOS and select a profile to get the optimal settings for your memory. If you don’t do this, the memory will run at the JEDEC default spec, which won't offer the full performance that the memory is capable of.