MSI's exclusive 'Memory Extension Mode' offers 21% more gaming perf on Intel Arrow Lake CPUs

MSI has just unveiled its exclusive new "Memory Extension Mode" for its 800-series motherboards and Intel's new Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake" CPUs, offering up to 21% more performance.

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The new MSI "Memory Extension Mode" has three different presets: Performance Mode, Benchmark Mode, and Memtest Mode. The new feature will choose the best memory configurations based on the CPUs integrated memory controller (IMC) and memory overclocking capabilities, which paves the way for the best performance depending on your workload.

MSI explains: "Starting with the 800-series motherboards, MSI introduces the new Click BIOS X, providing a more user-friendly interface. To activate Memory Extension Mode, enter BIOS (defaulting to EZ Mode), switch to Advanced Mode by pressing F7, and locate the Memory Extension Mode option on the Overclocking page. Select the desired mode from the menu to apply".

• Read more: MSI's new MEG Z890 Unify-X mobo with Kingston DDR5 RAM OC'd to record 12196 MT/s
• Read more: MSI Z890 MPG Carbon teased, ready for Intel's new Core Ultra 200 'Arrow Lake' CPUs
• Read more: MSI's next-gen Z890 and B860 mobos leaked: ready for Intel 'Arrow Lake-S' CPUs

MSI even went as far as sharing some benchmarks using its new Memory Extension Mode, improving the performance of their system (running an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor on its MEG Z890 ACE motherboard). MSI used both DDR5-7200 and DDR5-8200 memory modules, and compared to the XMP configuration, MSI's new Memory Extension Mode on the "High Efficiency" mode dropped memory latency by 12-16%.

System Configuration:

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K
• Motherboard: MSI MEG Z890 ACE
• Memory: Galax DDR5-7200 16GBx2 & G.Skill DDR5-8200 24GBx2
• Graphics Card: MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X 24G
• SSD: Kingston SNV2S/2000G
• CPU Cooler: MSI CORELIQUID I360
• Power Supply: MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5
• Operating System: Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.2033 (Power Mode: Best Performance)
• Game Settings: Black Myth: Wukong - High, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II - Balanced; all other games set to maximum quality

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In gaming benchmarks, MSI ran a decent suite of games that include Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wuklong, Red Dead Redemption 2, and more. MSI noticed a decent 4-16% improvement in 1080p gaming performance, while in some games, using DDR5-7200 memory and XMP + High Efficiency Mode, performance gains are up to 21% compared to default XMP.