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> Well I thought we were talking about getting ECC without major tradeoffs, to understand its [lack of] popularity. ECC isn't popular on desktops because Intel

> Well I thought we were talking about getting ECC without major tradeoffs, to understand its [lack of] popularity. ECC isn't popular on desktops because Intel, which supplies the overwhelming majority of the processors for platforms that use DIMMs, doesn't support ECC at all. As such, the market for people who can actually use ECC in a desktop (much less would want to) is very small. The only reason unbuffered ECC DIMMs are even on the market at all is because low-end servers use them.

faxfax 6y ago
I'm not sure where everyone gets the idea that Intel charges a big premium for ECC platforms. If you buy the low-end workstation Xeons the processor costs about the same. For example, Xeon W-1290 (10C, 5.2GHz turbo) has a $494 MSRP. The i9-10850K (also 10C, 5.2GHz turbo) has a $453 MSRP. You also have to buy a motherboard with a workstation chipset to use the Xeon, but W480 chipset motherboards are also priced about the same (~$200) as their consumer Z490 counterparts. The real reason ECC is not common is because it is perceived as unnecessary for desktop workloads. Software crashes and corrupts data all the time because of bugs, not bitflips. Most consumers care so little about their data that a single hard drive crash will wipe it all out anyways. Why spend 12% extra on memory if consumers hardly see any value from it?