Looking to get ECC for workstation. B550 motherboards are sold out everywhere in the US. Is it "safe" to buy from Japan?

Hardware Hub Motherboards
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I currently have a Ryzen 5 5600 (which supports ECC) in a MSI B450M Mortar (which does not support ECC). I’d like to replace the motherboard and RAM and keep everything else.

I’m currently looking at the ASRock B550 Steel Legend, but the only available boards new-in-box are from Japan. Is buying a motherboard from Japan a good idea? I’m guessing I can just re-flash it with the default BIOS to get English back?

Also, recommendations on DDR4 ECC? I’m currently considering two Crucial MTA9ASF2G72AZ-3G2R modules.

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Hey welcome!

Usually you get language options at the start? But I havent really tried.

You can take a picture and use something like google lens (is it even still alive? lol) to have words translated on the fly.

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AM4 and ECC is dodgy at best and you need a PRO CPU for ECC support so you’re more or less out of luck.

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Ryzen 5000 supports ECC. As long as the board supports it.

Running ECC on my ASUS TUF B550M-Plus with a 5800x. Samsung M391A2K43BB1-CTD

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You can check here for ram ASRock > B550 Steel Legend and verify your cpu supports ecc which from here https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/processors/ryzen/ryzen-5000-series/amd-ryzen-5-5600.html it seems it does.
Supported/verified memmory see ASRock > B550 Steel Legend
I had used many times ecc ram from not verified vendors but not on Amd so maybee other members with the same board provide a broader mem list

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Ahh, it only applies to CPUs with graphics… Thanks

A word of caution though, ECC support isn’t the same as working ECC support. It seems quite common that while ECC works as in operating the ECC functionality might be hardcoded as disabled.

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Thanks, appreciate the reply!

I would like to use DDR4-3200 memory, but the only two ECC sticks that are listed on the Memory QVL are 2666. Do you think 3200 would work, or not?

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I’ve used Kingston quad 32GB DDR4-3200 ECC for a total of 128GB on all my Zen 3 workstations, which are all Gigabyte mainboards with X570 or X570S chipsets.

Those even work with a mix of Samsung and Hynix chips as those Kingston DIMMs came in both flavors over time!

These are older systems by now, so I have no idea about component availability.

It’s also Kingston, but DDR5-5600 ECC on Zen 4, and unfortunately four DIMMs mean disastrous timings and performance, so I am using dual 48GB DIMMs for 96GB RAM total there.

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3200 should work. I run my 2666 ecc sticks at 3200 and it seems to work fine.

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I am using a mix of Samsung, Micron and Kinsgton, in total 64GB of ECC udimm memory on an Arock board. Works just fine.

DDR4_ECC
DDR4_ECC1920×1338 310 KB

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Thanks everyone, appreciate it!

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I live in Japan, and all my DIY PC hardware purchases never come with Japanese-language BIOS by default, so you (usually) don’t have to worry about that. At the very least, all of my ASRock and ASUS boards are English by default.

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