G.Skill’s latest AMD EXPO ULL (ultra-low latency) memory has been put through its paces, showing that it does indeed have a positive impact on gaming frame rates. According to tests conducted by tech site HardwareLuxx, these new DDR5 kits can deliver up to a 4% boost in gaming performance compared to non-ULL kits.
Announced at Computex 2026, AMD EXPO ULL is a new memory profile included inside compatible DDR5 modules, allowing you to select tighter timings compared to traditional EXPO kits. Specifically, EXPO ULL kits offer more aggressive secondary and tertiary timings, such as tRRD, tFAW, tWTR, tWR, and tRFC, which can improve performance in some workloads, including games.
To take advantage of these improved timings, you simply need to enable them in BIOS with a single click. However, you’ll need EXPO ULL-ready memory, as well as an up-to-date motherboard BIOS.
For its comparative test, HardwareLuxx went with a DDR5-6000 G.Skill Trident Z5 NeoX kit running with CL36-36-36-76 timings on a Ryzen 7 9700X system. This EXPO ULL kit was pitted against a non-ULL DDR5-6000 CL30-36-36-76-112 kit, as well as a cheaper DDR5-5600 CL40-40-47-77-117 kit.
In games, the EXPO ULL kit showed clear but mild performance gains compared to all the other tested kits, surpassing even a traditional CL26 pair of modules. For example, the EXPO ULL memory improved the average frame rate by 4.3% in F1 25 and 4.5% in Cyberpunk 2077 compared to the non-ULL CL30 kit. The same goes for the 1% lows, which increased by 3.8% and 5.5%, respectively. That said, games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Arc Raiders, and Counter-Strike 2 saw only 2% improvement or lower.
This somewhat aligns with AMD’s announcement, where the company advertised a 4% performance boost. Note, however, that AMD’s claim was averaged over 30 games, which indicates that some titles should enjoy gains above 4K for AMD to end up with that figure.
Regardless, the important takeaway is that EXPO ULL does bring a measurable frame rate boost, even if it’s not transformative. Unfortunately, though, you will need to buy a new memory kit to take advantage of it, and at the time of writing, EXPO ULL memory prices are very high compared to non-ULL EXPO memory. Thankfully, the DDR5 kit tested by HardwareLuxx is among the cheapest, asking for just $30 extra compared to an equivalent non-ULL kit.
With that said, there is an even cheaper way to get these performance gains without spending a dime, which is manual memory tuning. Unless you got unlucky with your silicon lottery, you may well be able to achieve similar or tighter timings yourself in the motherboard BIOS. Naturally, this will demand a lot of trial-and-error testing to ensure system stability, but the entire operation should be achievable over a weekend.
If you need to buy new RAM anyway, though, these EXPO ULL kits deliver a performance boost without you having to get your hands dirty in the BIOS. What’s more, as these sticks come factory-validated at those timings, you’re unlikely to encounter any sudden instabilities.
