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The Gigabyte B550 VISION motherboards claim to support ECC both on box and on the "key features" page[1]: Reliability ECC Memory To protect against data

by ptx 5y ago

The Gigabyte B550 VISION motherboards claim to support ECC both on box and on the "key features" page[1]: Reliability ECC Memory To protect against data corruption Error Correction Code (ECC) memory corrects errors in your data as it passes in and out of memory to ensure reliability for critical applications. [1] https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-VISION-D-rev-10#kf https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-VISION-D-rev-10#kf

pdimitar 5y ago
Thank you. Any observations on whether the CPU performs worse? It's a widely circulated meme that AMD CPUs hugely benefit from as fast a RAM as you can put in, whereas ECC is a bit slower.
- dfox 5y ago
  ECC is not inherently slower. Registered modules are slower (by the added latency of the register). ECC-or-not and registered-or-not are two orthogonal features of the DIMM and in theory all four combinations are possible. On the other hand non-registered ECC is somewhat rare (and for some reason often ridiculously expensive) and registered non-ECC probably is not manufactured at all (it does not make much sense).
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I see. So I should chase the fastest unregistered ECC modules I can find then? I'll do that when the time comes.
mindslight 5y ago
I just tried out a Vision D-P (B550) and the IOMMU groups were terrible. All PCIe cards were in one big group, so good luck passing through specific hardware to a VM. It might not matter in a workstation or it might be fixed by a BIOS update, but shrug. I went with an Asus instead. The Asus manual says "ECC memory support varies by CPU" which is questionable for the 5700G APU I went with, and I didn't feel like digging to find out if harder to obtain ECC UDIMMs would be beneficial. (This was for a router / personal server. My workstation is ECC on a libreboot/KGPE)
- pdimitar 5y ago
  > My workstation is ECC on a libreboot/KGPE Is it all-AMD? If it is, could you link to your setup? I am looking to build an all-AMD workstation this year and I need all the PCIe lanes that I can get.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    This would usually be a tangent, but it's quite apropos to the main topic. My workstation is the last amd64 hardware without ME/PSP. It's a few generations old - dual Opteron 6380's with 112G of RAM. I couldn't get it to train with 8 sticks of RAM, but it's solid and reliable with 7. Last time I stuck a Kill-a-watt on it, I think it draws around 140W at idle. An alternative to it would be something like the Raptor Talos. https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/kgpe-d16.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/kgpe-d16.html https://www.coreboot.org/Board:asus/kgpe-d16 https://www.coreboot.org/Board:asus/kgpe-d16 It's got 5 usable PCIe slots (including the physically-flipped "PIKE" one), I think a total of 40 PCIe lanes from both sockets that I believe you could theoretically split out with the maximum amount of bifurcation, since the BIOS is Free Software. My new Ryzen build is for a personal server that resides at a lower trust level, and targets around 30W draw. B550 motherboards generally have around 28 PCIe lanes going to expansion slots (20 from the proc, 8 from the chipset). The best you can do for number of slots is to bifurcate the main "graphics" x16 into 3 x4 slots (maybe 4 with a non-APU) using a "VROC" card, but the BIOS has to support that (Gigabyte and Asus seem to generally, but check manual). I believe X570 motherboards have a few more PCIe lanes coming from the chipset. If you really need more PCIe lanes, I hear Threadripper/EPYC is the way to go. But I don't have any personal experience. If you just need more PCIe slots, you can find PCIe x1 -> four slot switch-based splitters inexpensively on ebay/aliexpress.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      I see. Thanks a bunch, definitely bookmarking your comment. I have a bit more requirements for hardware but your setup might actually turn out awesome for a server. > Last time I stuck a Kill-a-watt on it, I think it draws around 140W at idle Another tangent (sorry!): do you know of good power meters that don't have to sit right at the outlet? I really need several but I want them to have extensions because I want to glue them on my wall and monitor them in real time, not having to stick my ass in the air while trying to crawl under my desk (where all the outlets are), just so I can see the measurements.

by ptx 5y ago

pdimitar 5y ago

Thank you. Any observations on whether the CPU performs worse? It's a widely circulated meme that AMD CPUs hugely benefit from as fast a RAM as you can put in, whereas ECC is a bit slower.

dfox 5y ago
ECC is not inherently slower. Registered modules are slower (by the added latency of the register). ECC-or-not and registered-or-not are two orthogonal features of the DIMM and in theory all four combinations are possible. On the other hand non-registered ECC is somewhat rare (and for some reason often ridiculously expensive) and registered non-ECC probably is not manufactured at all (it does not make much sense).
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I see. So I should chase the fastest unregistered ECC modules I can find then? I'll do that when the time comes.

mindslight 5y ago

I just tried out a Vision D-P (B550) and the IOMMU groups were terrible. All PCIe cards were in one big group, so good luck passing through specific hardware to a VM. It might not matter in a workstation or it might be fixed by a BIOS update, but shrug. I went with an Asus instead. The Asus manual says "ECC memory support varies by CPU" which is questionable for the 5700G APU I went with, and I didn't feel like digging to find out if harder to obtain ECC UDIMMs would be beneficial. (This was for a router / personal server. My workstation is ECC on a libreboot/KGPE)

pdimitar 5y ago
> My workstation is ECC on a libreboot/KGPE Is it all-AMD? If it is, could you link to your setup? I am looking to build an all-AMD workstation this year and I need all the PCIe lanes that I can get.
- mindslight 5y ago
  This would usually be a tangent, but it's quite apropos to the main topic. My workstation is the last amd64 hardware without ME/PSP. It's a few generations old - dual Opteron 6380's with 112G of RAM. I couldn't get it to train with 8 sticks of RAM, but it's solid and reliable with 7. Last time I stuck a Kill-a-watt on it, I think it draws around 140W at idle. An alternative to it would be something like the Raptor Talos. https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/kgpe-d16.html https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/kgpe-d16.html https://www.coreboot.org/Board:asus/kgpe-d16 https://www.coreboot.org/Board:asus/kgpe-d16 It's got 5 usable PCIe slots (including the physically-flipped "PIKE" one), I think a total of 40 PCIe lanes from both sockets that I believe you could theoretically split out with the maximum amount of bifurcation, since the BIOS is Free Software. My new Ryzen build is for a personal server that resides at a lower trust level, and targets around 30W draw. B550 motherboards generally have around 28 PCIe lanes going to expansion slots (20 from the proc, 8 from the chipset). The best you can do for number of slots is to bifurcate the main "graphics" x16 into 3 x4 slots (maybe 4 with a non-APU) using a "VROC" card, but the BIOS has to support that (Gigabyte and Asus seem to generally, but check manual). I believe X570 motherboards have a few more PCIe lanes coming from the chipset. If you really need more PCIe lanes, I hear Threadripper/EPYC is the way to go. But I don't have any personal experience. If you just need more PCIe slots, you can find PCIe x1 -> four slot switch-based splitters inexpensively on ebay/aliexpress.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I see. Thanks a bunch, definitely bookmarking your comment. I have a bit more requirements for hardware but your setup might actually turn out awesome for a server. > Last time I stuck a Kill-a-watt on it, I think it draws around 140W at idle Another tangent (sorry!): do you know of good power meters that don't have to sit right at the outlet? I really need several but I want them to have extensions because I want to glue them on my wall and monitor them in real time, not having to stick my ass in the air while trying to crawl under my desk (where all the outlets are), just so I can see the measurements.