I’m looking to build a PC with a spare 3700x CPU I have. The PC’s primary purpose will be for running my personal media collection with Plex, Calibre, and YACserver. I would like to build the PC with ECC memory because I plan to leave it in operation 24/7. I was looking at Asrock B550 motherboards because they actually have ECC memory listed on their QVL lists for those boards. However, the memory modules they list seem to be hard to find. They all seem to be Kingston brand, but they’re lot available on Kingston’s site. Can I just buy similar unbuffered DDR4 ECC RAM, and hope for the best?
You’d also need a Ryzen Pro CPU.
I have NEMIX brand DDR4 UDIMMs off Amazon and it seems to have passed Memtest ECC
Or any of the Vermeer parts.
I have seen EDAC logged results for a 3700X. It’s the G variants that need Pro but the non-graphics AM4 Ryzens should enable Unbuffered ECC support, so long as the motherboard is configured to use it. B550 is solid, I’ve got EDAC logs indicating it’s enabled.
K3n.
So for ECC you need three parts:
- A CPU that supports ECC
- A Motherboard that supports ECC
- A Memory Stick that supports ECC
The 3700X is good to go as far as I can see. Motherboard differs between both brands and models, so you need to be a bit careful there, sometimes you get lucky with unofficial support but it is best to have official support.
Do look into if you really need ECC RAM though, it is usually slower and comes with a few extra caveats. If all you are doing is store a few hundred BRD rips, the likelyhood of a bitflip rendering a movie unwatchable is minimal, and even if it does, just rip the Blue Ray again, problem solved?
If it’s family photos, it’s a bit more important however.
I always forget these AMD codenames… F*ck me its the generation I am on.
Are we sure ECC actually works and not just the RAM kit just works? AFAIK it was supposedly the PRO cpu that actually had functioning ECCs and I found it annoying that the only recent Pro CPUs that are available as non-OEM parts were the Threadripper PROs?
There are Vermeer Pro CPUs but I remember them to be system integrator/OEM only parts: your Lenovos, HPs and Dells
AMD CPU 5000 series works with ECC damnit my purchasing decision was wrong!
My current home server is running on an i7-2600 with 1333Mhz DDR3. lol I’m honestly not upgrading for power reasons. Windows 10 is approaching its end, I want to move to Linux, and I’ve also run out of expansion options on my current system. I’m trying to plan the build with the goals of power efficiency, and stability. I saw Wolfgang’s video on using B550 with ECC, and decided to put my old CPU to use.
No need to explain yourself; I’m merely saying, you might be fine without ECC, depending on your use case, but going with ECC anyway is certainly not a bad idea. Just suboptimal, depending on what you want to store.
If you still want it, feel free to buy it! The peace of mind is worth more than the extra $50-$100 it costs to get ECC working
Do you have a citation? I have experience, and a 5700X running right now with ECC UDIMMs, upgraded from the 3700X I mentioned.
The best link I have is here, from AMD’s Community Forum, that it’s expected to work but will depend on motherboards being configured to make use of it.
K3n.
No citation and I could be wrong though.
https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1045186/
yep turns out the 5000 series can support ECC. My recall was wrong after all.
I got Mushkin MPL4E320NF16G18 sticks for my ASRock B550M-HDV-based NAS. They seem to work (as in no issues in memtest86 and the kernel reports SECDED ECC). I haven’t had any actual correctable errors reported though so I cannot be absolutely sure that ECC works 100 %, including reporting.