How is it helpful to anyone to gripe about QVLs being worthless, then provide no alternative solution?
The QVLs are not perfect but they are not "shit" either. At the very least they are a research "starting place". Where else would you have people look to learn what's compatible with their board? The board's advertising/marketing hype? PCPartPicker? Crucial Memory Finder? You offered nothing.
PCPartPicker and Crucial memory finder are good, but I put more faith in the motherboard maker. ASUS and Gigabyte, as examples, only have to maintain small databases for their own ASUS and Gigabyte boards.
Those aftermarket 3rd party sites have to keep up with every motherboard maker out there. And the RAM wizards also have to keep up with every PC and laptop maker too. And where do they get their information but from the board/computer makers and, likely, their QVLs.
I do totally agree with you that the board makers do need to do a MUCH BETTER job at keeping their QVLs current after the initial release of the board. But again, what's a better option for consumers to learn what is compatible?
I'm not sure they need to go back and retest everything again after a BIOS update - I've not personally seen or heard of any instance where RAM was compatible, then after a BIOS update, was no longer compatible. If it happened, it is a rare exception to the norm.
But certainly there are cases where compatible RAM (by specs) is not listed. I find that frustrating especially since, in some cases, new BIOS versions are released just to add support for new RAM (and CPUs) that came out after the boards left the factory. That makes no sense to me not to update the QVL too. So
I am with you there.
It is not semantics when one is reality and the other is false.
That said, I totally agree the QVL is not the topic here.
I have never heard of anyone who "seeks lower quantity" - regardless the reason.
Of course they care about performance. Why would anyone add RAM if not trying to improve performance? The OP specifically said,
That clearly reflects the most common scenario among the vast majority of users - they want to increase their RAM to get "
a little more" performance out of their system, without having to dink with clocks and voltage settings.