How to validate ECC ram will work on a motherboard?

Hardware Motherboards
1

I'm planning a workstation build for which I want to use ECC RAM. So I decided to go with a Xeon E3 1245 v5 and the ASUS P10S WS motherboard (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P10S-WS/specifications).

Now here's the deal. Reading the ASUS specs and manual, it is clear that I can install ECC memory (UDIMM). However, it is not stated the board supports ECC functionality. On the hardware review sites I visited however, ECC isn't mentioned for the MB, and hardware.info even explicitly states the board does not support ECC (e.g. http://us.hardware.info/product/339500/asus-p10s-ws/specifications).

So I'm confused. How can I be certain the motherboard will actually work with ECC enabled and functional?

2

It is ECC enabled. The C236 chipset on the board 100% supports ECC and UDIMM's. Your fine to go ahead and get some ECC unbuffered memory and take it for a spin. I don't know that hardware.info site, but if it says that board doesn't support ECC than I'd disregard it as gibberish. This board 100%, without a doubt, supports ECC. That Xeon is a ECC capable part and the motherboard also 100% supports ECC, so that site saying otherwise flags it as nonsense to me.

3

Thanks for this fast reply!

1 Like
4

@thecaveman is right. If you are ever unsure - just double check what the CPU and Chipset support. C236 supports ECC and AFAIK all Xeon chips do as well.