I was wondering if there is a possibility we can see unlocked memory profiles on the new Intel Ultra Series 3 FW13 Pro’s?
It is my understanding that both processor (Ultra X7 358H & Ultra X9 388H) and memory (FW original LPCAMM2 modules) are able to run at 8533 MT/s speeds. But that due to PCB and platform choices this speed has been capped at 7467 MT/s.
As I personally like to tinker with settings like these, is this not something that can be unlocked on a BIOS level?
The integrated Intel B390 GPU is heavily dependent on memory speeds to perform optimally and various benchmarks have already shown that B390 configurations with 9600 MT/s speeds can be faster from 10%, up to 30% in certain tests / benchmarks.
So my question is, can Framework unlock the BIOS to give users access to try different JEDEC speed presets present on their LPCAMM2 modules? I understand that this will most likely not work on most configurations. But maybe for some users or some HW combinations it is possible.
Looking forward to hear what others think of this option
It’s not possible; the CPUs don’t allow overclocking of any kind, including memory. If there were some kind kind of -HK variant then we could talk about doing that.
In this use-case. I think there is a possibility to work-around this overclocking restriction. Even though it’s not officially supported.
As far as I understand, the memory speed is negotiated between 3 capabilities:
CPU
LPCAMM2 Module
Motherboard
Both CPU & LPCAMM2 Module support higher speeds, so if Framework is able to give the user access to what maximum speed is reported by the motherboard, the memory should be able to run at a higher speed.
It might very well be that Intel does not allow Framework to do this in their BIOS.
It would have to be at JEDEC speeds/timings. Which if the modules supported that, they would just run at those speeds since obviously FW would want to run them at those speeds out of the box.
By all means give it a shot, I just don’t think you’ll get anywhere.
This has been confusing me because I’ve seen multiple people say that Panther Lake only supports up to 7,500 MT/s with LPCAMM2. Intel themselves have stated that Panther Lake supports up to LPDDR5X-9600 MT/s, so that discrepancy is strange to me.
If the limitation is specifically LPCAMM2, that’s also confusing because the LPCAMM2 spec itself supports up to 9,600 MT/s, while commonly available retail modules are around 7,500 to 8,533 MT/s.
But like some people said here, I guess the real limitation here is the motherboard, where things like signal integrity and other platform-level factors may limit Panther Lake systems to around 7,500 MT/s in practice. There are just so many different “maximum speeds” being discussed that it gets really confusing for people who aren’t familiar with the distinction between the CPU, memory module, and motherboard limitations, LOL.
Official Intel specs for Panther Lake, available from their website. The marketers will just shorten stuff like this to sth. that will mislead people and is far from accurate.
The CPUs used by Framework are H12Xe, the Ultra 5 325 is “404”.
No matter what the LPCAMM2 standard makes possible, it is a standard that defines MANY different speeds. THIS CPU has only been certified for 7467 when using it. It always works like that. The JEDEC standards are necessarily ahead of commercially available platforms supporting new speeds. And memory speeds are gotten wrong by the majority of publications even. For example the last few gens of Intel desktop CPUs clearly had in their specs that they only supported the top advertised speeds in boards with 1 slot per memory channel and not the max. 2 slots per channel most desktop boards have. Those manufacturers simply “overclocked” and exceeded the specs from the factory, which explains a hell of a lot of memory instabilities, just like they liked to exceed all kinds of power budgets. But those kinds of violations are not typical in the notebook market. Especially because that kind of unsupported overclocking comes at the cost of all power saving mechanisms (because they will be the first to fail) that notebooks require to be as power efficient as they are.
Facts that most people that ask for overclocking of their - tuned for power efficiency while remaining stable - notebook CPUs tend to not be aware of.
Thanks for this exhaustive answer! I did not know this information was available.
The wording Framework used in the past made it seem that due to some motherboard limitation 7467 MT/s was the highest possible speeds. This makes it very clear that Intel Panther Lake (non Ultra 5 325 edition) will only ever support 7467 MT/s
