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> You’re blaming Intel’s CPU lineup for people not using ECC RAM on their AMD builds? I'm blaming the decade+ of Intel dominance for killing any chance of ECC

> You’re blaming Intel’s CPU lineup for people not using ECC RAM on their AMD builds? I'm blaming the decade+ of Intel dominance for killing any chance of ECC becoming popular in non-server environments, just as RAM density was reaching the point where it is absolutely essential for reliability. > The real reason people don’t use ECC is because they don’t like paying extra for consumer builds. That’s all. ECC requires more chips, more traces, and more expense. Consumers can’t tell if there’s a benefit, so they skip it. Motherboard traces are ~free and the feature is in the die already, so it requires zero expense to offer it to consumers. Intel chose to artificially cripple their chips to remove that option. Yes, I know there are a few oddball lines where they did offer it. They should have offered it across the board from the get go, seeing as they were selling the same dies with ECC for workstation use.

Karunamon 5y ago
ECC memory on the other hand is always going to be more expensive.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Indeed, which is why it should be an option. OTOH, it shouldn't be significantly more expensive. It should be ~9/8 the cost of regular memory. It's just one extra chip for every 8. Nothing more.
  - my123 5y ago
    in-band ECC is also a thing. In that scenario, you give up some capacity for the ECC bits but stay with the same DRAM config as before. (in-band ECC is present on Elkhart Lake Atoms and on Tegra Xavier for example)
  - namibj 5y ago
    Actually less, because you only need the additional memory chip and associated trace layouting, not any additional PCB manufacturing cost (beyond miniscule yield impact of the additional traces) and no significant added distribution cost (packaging, shipping weight, etc.).
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I'm blaming the decade+ of Intel dominance for killing any chance of ECC becoming popular in non-server environments I disagree. AMD has offered ECC support for a while and it’s not catching on. It doesn’t make sense to blame this on Intel. > Motherboard traces are ~free and the feature is in the die already, so it requires zero expense to offer it to consumers. Yet it’s missing from a substantial number of AMD boards, despite being supported. You have to specifically confirm the motherboard added those traces before buying it. Traces aren’t entirely free. Modern boards are densely packed and manufacturers aren’t interested in spending extra time on routing for a feature that consumers aren’t interested in anyway.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  > Traces aren’t entirely free. Modern boards are densely packed and manufacturers aren’t interested in spending extra time on routing for a feature that consumers aren’t interested in anyway. Or they just don't care because it's not already popular and unbuffered ECC RAM isn't even particularly widely available. The delta design cost of routing another 8 data lines per DIMM channel is tiny. Especially on ATX boards and other larger formats. I could see some crazy packed mini-ITX layout where this might be a bit harder, but definitely not in the normal cases. (I've routed a rather dense 4-layer BGA credit card sized board; not exactly a motherboard, but I do have a bit of experience with this subject. It was definitely denser than a typical ATX board per layer.)
  - simoncion 5y ago
    > ...unbuffered ECC RAM isn't even particularly widely available. Every time I've gone looking for unbuffered ECC RAM over the past three or five years, I've had no trouble finding it. In my experience, the trick is to shop for "server" RAM, rather than "desktop" RAM. Are there speeds or capacities here that you'd particularly like to see that aren't present? <https://nemixram.com/server-memory/ecc-udimm/ https://nemixram.com/server-memory/ecc-udimm/>
    - marcan_42 5y ago
      It's available, but not nearly as widely, and even less so at reasonable prices. Last time I had to buy ECC RAM over here in Japan, I had to go to a niche webshop to get a decent price on the capacity I was interested in. For every other PC part I'd just use Amazon and get it delivered next day, usually at the market lowest price or almost.

Karunamon 5y ago

ECC memory on the other hand is always going to be more expensive.

marcan_42 5y ago
Indeed, which is why it should be an option. OTOH, it shouldn't be significantly more expensive. It should be ~9/8 the cost of regular memory. It's just one extra chip for every 8. Nothing more.
- my123 5y ago
  in-band ECC is also a thing. In that scenario, you give up some capacity for the ECC bits but stay with the same DRAM config as before. (in-band ECC is present on Elkhart Lake Atoms and on Tegra Xavier for example)
- namibj 5y ago
  Actually less, because you only need the additional memory chip and associated trace layouting, not any additional PCB manufacturing cost (beyond miniscule yield impact of the additional traces) and no significant added distribution cost (packaging, shipping weight, etc.).

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I'm blaming the decade+ of Intel dominance for killing any chance of ECC becoming popular in non-server environments I disagree. AMD has offered ECC support for a while and it’s not catching on. It doesn’t make sense to blame this on Intel. > Motherboard traces are ~free and the feature is in the die already, so it requires zero expense to offer it to consumers. Yet it’s missing from a substantial number of AMD boards, despite being supported. You have to specifically confirm the motherboard added those traces before buying it. Traces aren’t entirely free. Modern boards are densely packed and manufacturers aren’t interested in spending extra time on routing for a feature that consumers aren’t interested in anyway.

marcan_42 5y ago
> Traces aren’t entirely free. Modern boards are densely packed and manufacturers aren’t interested in spending extra time on routing for a feature that consumers aren’t interested in anyway. Or they just don't care because it's not already popular and unbuffered ECC RAM isn't even particularly widely available. The delta design cost of routing another 8 data lines per DIMM channel is tiny. Especially on ATX boards and other larger formats. I could see some crazy packed mini-ITX layout where this might be a bit harder, but definitely not in the normal cases. (I've routed a rather dense 4-layer BGA credit card sized board; not exactly a motherboard, but I do have a bit of experience with this subject. It was definitely denser than a typical ATX board per layer.)
- simoncion 5y ago
  > ...unbuffered ECC RAM isn't even particularly widely available. Every time I've gone looking for unbuffered ECC RAM over the past three or five years, I've had no trouble finding it. In my experience, the trick is to shop for "server" RAM, rather than "desktop" RAM. Are there speeds or capacities here that you'd particularly like to see that aren't present? <https://nemixram.com/server-memory/ecc-udimm/ https://nemixram.com/server-memory/ecc-udimm/>
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    It's available, but not nearly as widely, and even less so at reasonable prices. Last time I had to buy ECC RAM over here in Japan, I had to go to a niche webshop to get a decent price on the capacity I was interested in. For every other PC part I'd just use Amazon and get it delivered next day, usually at the market lowest price or almost.