Which budget X570 boards have ECC 1-bit correcttion and 2-bit reporting - SECDED?

Hardware Motherboards
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I’m trying to establish which boards in my budget range support both 1-bit memory errors reporting/correction, and 2-bit memory errors reporting (which depending on OS support can be used to trigger a system halt) - AKA SECDED (Single Error Correction Double Error Detection)

This doesn’t seem to be straight forward because it appears some boards will accept ECC memory but do not run it in ECC mode, some boards silently correct 1 bit errors but don’t report, and it remains unclear to me which boards in my range (provided paired with a suitable CPU) report on both corrected 1-bit errors along with 2-bit errors (which can’t be corrected).

I’m hoping based on the comment there should be good knowledge around here that could point me to reviews on x570 to confirm which have 2-bit error detection and reporting that is detectable by the OS?

Boards I’ve been considering:

  • ASUS PRIME X570-P
  • Gigabyte X570 GAMING X
  • ASRock X570 Pro4
  • ASRock X570 Steel Legend
  • ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4

I’m using the scan.co.uk for purchasing the majority of my components in case someone wants :
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/motherboards-amd/amd-x570-socket-am4-atx-motherboards

as I’m in Ireland I tend to stick to EU based distributors to avoid any mess with import taxes

I did look at an MSI board in my budget range and while it indicates it accepts ECC memory it only runs in non-ECC mode, in other words, no point in buying ECC memory for it:

The ASUS boards have been confirmed to support 2-bit error reporting:

I am currently using an ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 and it does report single bit error which was the best at the time I built the current system (dmidecode on linux output):

Handle 0x0034, DMI type 16, 15 bytes
Physical Memory Array
        Location: System Board Or Motherboard
        Use: System Memory
        Error Correction Type: Single-bit ECC
        Maximum Capacity: 16 GB
        Error Information Handle: Not Provided
        Number Of Devices: 4

However further reading about ASUS and it’s handling of memory not on the QVL, makes me a little hesitant:

If you’re building large scale server farms with high end server motherboards, it can be worth the restrictions to stick to the QVL. But in the desktop/PC world it’s almost never necessary to restrict yourself in such a way. That’s why we allow for compatibility if the RAM says it is a certain spec and the motherboard says it supports that spec. The only manufacturer I’ve heard of to date that denies support requests because RAM isn’t on the QVL is Asus. I’m not sure if that’s an Asus-wide thing, or just select people handling the support calls not wanting to spend the time on it.

I failed to find a single ECC module on their QVL, possibly missed it, as it requires going through each model number to confirm whether it’s ECC or non-ECC. Possibly because they want to direct people towards their the ACE model that is marketed for workstations with ECC support. Nice but fairly expensive as main boards go. (QVL)

Gigabyte is doing ECC but apparently without correctly reporting it, which means that you can’t even determine if getting a lot of 1-bit errors never mind an un-correctable 2-bit error:

The official statement I got from Gigabyte 1st line tech support, so could be completly BS, is that ECC works by default just no bios settings and that it does not report, only detects and corrects single bit errors. But if we can’t assess that it is we must believe it is not

See Gigabyte X570 boards ecc ram support for more on above
GigaByte QVL includes ECC memory modules which certain suggests they are testing with them, just not sure how can pick up on errors occurring if there is no reporting - https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_x570-gaming-x_matisse_191231.pdf

This leaves me with ASRock (technically this is still Asus because that’s the parent company?).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/bsszwg/ecc_ryzen_and_2bit_errors/ contains:

As I understand it: Asrock is the only manufacturer that has enabled 2-bit error detection on Ryzen (edit) on all of their boards. Asus support for multi-bit errors may depend on board and BIOS. Other board makers may detect 1-bit errors or accept ECC memory but not enable ECC, and they likely won’t report 2-bit errors to the OS. Edit 2: Comment has a Gigabyte board that correctly reports 2-bit errors.

Great, but unclear where that is sourced from and how to establish it based on reported features?

The QVL for the ASRock boards do contain some clearly marked ECC memory modules tested for support https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X570%20Pro4/index.asp#MemoryMS so that is definitely a positive.

Reading through the manual for the boards only mention of ECC is in the memory specs.

So current situation is take a gamble with the ASUS board and memory compatibility, as there is confirmed 2-bit error detection, or take a gamble with the ASRock boards providing 2-bit error detection as I can’t find the source confirmation.

Am I missing something? Or are there other x570 boards in the same range that have confirmed SECDED reporting to the OS?

Resources I’ve read though:

3 Likes
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I bumped you up to a member so now you should be able to post links.

Wish I could help you more.

@SgtAwesomesauce anything come to mind?

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nada. :confused:

promoting a user will allow the posting of links though.

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I went ahead and gave him a hand with that.

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Thanks, I was a bit slow in getting back to fix up the links

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Just after spotting that the ASRock boards appear to suggest that it doesn’t support all 4 slots in use at the same time at 3200MHz unless the memory has an extreme memory profile? https://www.asrock.com/mb/Memory/4xMatisse-3200-2667.png

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Steel%20Legend/index.asp#Specification for full spec

When I look through the QVL https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Steel%20Legend/index.asp#MemoryMS I see that it shows 4 DIMM as tested with non ECC Kingston covering 3200.

When I look through the Asus QVL and specs I didn’t see any such mention of the memory speed being limited if you go to fill all 4 slots with memory that doesn’t have any XMP https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-X570-P/HelpDesk_QVL_Memory/

Am I reading this wrong or is it just ASRock being careful in case it’s not possible to get memory to be stable at certain speeds where they haven’t qualified it?

So much for a simple choice

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Hi, any luck confirming the ECC support for any of the boards? I’m currently in a similar situation. I’m trying to find an mITX board for a home server and only ASRock seems to advertise ECC support in their QVLs, with no distinction for 1-bit and 2-bit ECC.

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Sorry, I’ve had to pause on my new machine for a couple of months, with a house move in the works and lots of arrangements around it needed I figured it might be a good idea to wait until settled into the new place so now hoping to buy and complete the build in Jan. Might pick a component or two up if there are some decent reductions black Friday/cyber Monday, but otherwise will wait.

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X570 boards are generally gaming boards with a few exceptions.
ECC memory is kinda supported but only udimm unregistered unbuffered.
But not all modules would work, so double check memory qvl lists.

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The only X570 boards with qualified ECC support I know of are:

I’m a bit hesitant to use the Asrock Rack boards as they don’t have an active heatsink on the chipset, it’s clearly designed for a server case. BIOS Updates are infrequent to non existent.

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The only X570 boards with qualified ECC support I know of are:

Search in 22 page document for “ECC”: no results.

[Edit]: ok fine, for the old generation of Ryzen 3000 CPUs they have one module with ECC certified: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/Pro_WS_X570-ACE/Memory_QVL_for_3rd_Gen_AMD_Ryzen_Processors_X570_0722.pdf
I don’t think that warrants singling out this board as having better support than the myriad of other boards that are supposed to support ECC.

Sorry for reviving this old 4 months old reply and scrutinizing it.

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Ahhh! So much nice research, thanks for the links, but no conclusion :cry:

I’m looking to run ECC on my new 5950X. Extra limiting due to my plan to go ITX, but ITX with solid power delivery is a requirement for me.

I am currently planning to go with the Strix ITX X570 board, I think I’m going to try it first and swap boards till I find what I want or give up, because it’s way too hard to find information on workstation type setups on the gaming focused boards. The thing about this is that I do care about these aspects equally: I’m trying to take the gaming set of values (chart topping speed) and apply it to the workstation, i.e. really solid reliability (but not quite to the uncompromising levels of reliability). So it’s not going to work for me to have an undercooled chipset or very sparse bios releases. I will try to run a high speed NIC, but will be able to get it done over the 2nd M.2, and don’t quite need the significant extra connectivity like the AsRock Rack boards provide.

For ASUS, the VRMs are overall considered the strongest, the ram compatibility (lack of clarity notwithstanding) is up there if not the best, and I’ve experienced a lot of good stability on my most recent desktop builds, all ASUS (Sabertooth X99, Maximus X Hero, Zenith Extreme). I really wish there was even one reviewer who goes in-depth evaluating these aspects.

I just think it’ll come down to fully confirming the ECC logging and detection capability. I need to figure out how to properly trigger that. I’ve already got ecc running on the zenith extreme but I never tried overclocking it enough to trigger failures.

Aside from ECC concerns (and IOMMU concerns, which I’m just gonna ignore for now cuz it seems like there’s little risk of problems with them), I’m trying to learn about how Dynamic Undervolting/Curve Optimizer/etc. features actually are gonna work and what differences will exist between the boards. Again it has been looking like I’ll make better use of my time to physically order and iterate through actual motherboards and evaluate them myself than to keep searching because I’m coming up empty.

The real question then seems to be if ASUS doesn’t do the trick for me, which (Gigabyte, AsRock, MSI…) to try next? Probably this will need to be pending on the specific shortcoming in question…

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Quite a few of the ASRock QVL memory lists for their x570 boards include ECC memory and based on https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/kg05nh/asrock_x570_am4_motherboards_now_have_official/ and
looking at the latest content of ASRock > X570 Steel Legend it appears that ASRock are more openly advertising their boards as supporting ECC.

The main problem has been in understanding what that means, because it’s not clear what exactly support means. Does it just mean provided you couple it with a suitable CPU (e.g Ryzen 3000) that it’ll silently correct single bit errors, or will it also report such errors to the OS?

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So far I have a small amount of information based on my own testing. He let me borrow his H1 so I’m running my new chip inside my friend’s Aorus B550I Pro AX. Once I put my Samsung ECC in, it ran fine and booted to Windows, but it would quite consistently freeze when saving and exiting the UEFI when changing settings. It didn’t even seem like I had to change ram settings for it to do this, so it seems like at least on this board, ECC isn’t a good idea.

The only way to properly determine if ECC is working is either to use a board that guarantees it (not a chance here!) or to OC it to the ragged edge and look at logs, and having the BIOS lock up upon saving settings prevents OC as a possibility.

Probably got to stick to either AsRock or ASUS for ECC. I just wasn’t expecting Gigabyte to behave so poorly.

I also worry that ITX boards are not designed with the workstation use case in mind. Whether the ECC will work is likely gonna be up to chance. I doubt the manufacturers will do anything about it when (if!) they discover problems specific to this in testing, especially for these types of boards…

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Adding some more notes from my adventures…

I got 2x32GB KSM32ED8/32ME. This runs in the B550I Aorus, and I was able to set it to different clock speeds and save the settings, but it didn’t run stable (would reboot while compiling code). I’m running it stock 3200Mhz.

I tried to set up my Strix X570-I Gaming board yesterday and it was an abject failure as it refused to POST with any ECC module that I have, and i have several on hand. This wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if it weren’t for the fact that the only 32GB modules I have are ECC, and I do need 64GB for work now.

Then I checked the Tech Specs page and lo and behold, ASUS has made it fairly clear that this particular Strix ITX board does not support any form of ECC. Back to the store it shall go.

I’m now in the process of evaluating what board to replace it with. I have a Dark Hero X570 board sitting here in my room, I’d very much like to use it with my 5950X, but I don’t want to give up on my ITX SFF dreams just yet… It certainly is tempting though. Very tempting.

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you can have a look at this thread for confirmed boards.

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Thanks for checking in @diversity and for your contribution to science.

Since my Strix ITX board flatly doesn’t even attempt to support ECC, i’ll be going to swap it out for the next board in the lineup which is definitely an AsRock, I will probably be testing the AsRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax. I’d normally go for X570, but frankly a secondary M.2 will end up more flexible for my uses than TB3. None of the other benefits of X570 apply in an ITX context, so I’ll gladly take a passively cooled board with 2.5G networking.

It’s $30 off on newegg today so I’m snagging it now.

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My I please enquirer what you mean by ‘qualified’?

If it is that the vendor says and markets ‘yeah sure, it’s cool’ then please reconsider your list.

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gosh, I realize now that that sentence does not make any sence.

I meant. single bit detection, correction and reporting.

and

multi bit detection and reporting, as there is no multi bit correction as far as we have being able to proof and the literature has thought us

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@dc443 Thank you for documenting some of your experiences here. Did you have success with the ASRock B550 ITX board?

Otherwise, has anyone found a B550/X570 ITX motherboard that truly supports ECC, outside of the ASRock Rack options? I’d like something more appropriate for a workstation.