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I'm happy with my AMD based laptop. But I haven't seen any that support ECC. But I did see a Lenovo model, IIRC, that had some kind of Xeon and ECC. Not sure w

I'm happy with my AMD based laptop. But I haven't seen any that support ECC. But I did see a Lenovo model, IIRC, that had some kind of Xeon and ECC. Not sure what the noise and battery life situations on that thing were, though.

OJFord 4y ago
I realise that's blurrier when it comes to laptops, but AIUI it's more a case of whether the motherboard than supports it than about the AMD chip. i.e. given a desktop CPU, as far as I know you can put it in a motherboard that either does or does not support ECC RAM.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  I'm surprised nobody has made RAM with the ECC logic built into the ram itself, that just looks like normal ram to the CPU.
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    It is called DDR5 - it has ECC built in the module itself. Making such a module does not make much sense if you cannot report the rate of errors, so if it is just hiding you have a bad RAM stick there is only so much value in having ECC.
    - simoncion 4y ago
      It is my understanding that the ECC that you're talking about only protects data-in-flight between the module and whatever is reading or writing the data. It does not protect against corruption of data-at-rest, which is what is protected with ECC in DDR4 and older. It's also my understanding that the DDR5 data-in-flight ECC is a mandatory feature because the link between the memory modules and everything else is so error-prone that the system would simply not function without it.
      - eternityforest 4y ago
        Taking a quick glace at the articles, I think it's the opposite, DDR5 protects data at rest only, because they want to make the chips so unreliable it can't work without it, not the bus. But in practice, it will probably be more reliable than DDR4 without ECC, since now you need 2 cosmic ray flips, or 1 plus a manufacturing defect flip, and the defect flips will probably be uncommon-ish. It's too bad data in flight isn't protected without old fashioned ECC on top of that, but it will probably be a big step up, the same way that flash memory is now very reliable even though the actual uncorrected errors are probably worse under the hood.
        toast0 4y ago
        The problem with the DDR5 approach is there's no reporting mechanism, so while it will reduce the error rate of a marginal module, it doesn't let you know so you can replace it. In my experience with ECC modules, a module with some errors is a lot more likely to get more errors than one that's operating with zero errors.
        eternityforest 4y ago
        According to this post on Reddit there is reporting: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qjhvjg/are_ddr5_error_rates_actually_expected_to_be/hiqyc2g?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qjhvjg/are_ddr5_e... But even without it, it would be no worse than DDR4 with no ECC at all, where the only indication of bad ram is just that it crashes or memtest fails. It sounds like they intend to make the chips all slightly bad and then correct it, so a few errors here and there might not indicate a true bad stick that needs replacement anymore.
  - IYasha 4y ago
    Having ECC being checked inside the CPU is actually useful as data loss may be induced by EMI (and other factors) on PCB data lines.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  That's right, but seeing how laptops seem to do the bare-minimum, I would be really surprised to learn than a random model, which doesn't advertise it, actually supports it.
- my123 4y ago
  Ryzen APUs, which include almost all AMD laptops, actually have ECC fused off in silicon unless you buy the "Pro" variant.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    Huh. I didn't know that. My particular laptop does have a "pro" CPU. However, I would be surprised to no end to learn that it supports ECC. This particular model sports an MBP-level price tag [0], but is absurdly cheaply built. Even for "customer facing components", that are easy to compare, such as the screen (terrible colors) and case (creaks if you look at it wrong). HP doesn't offer ECC RAM, not even as an upgrade, so I really don't think the additional lines are physically present. --- [0] I don't remember the specific number, but it was within 100 € of a 14" M1 MBP with 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. That's counting a RAM (8 -> 32) and SSD (256 -> 512) upgrade which were made with components bought separately (though they were rather high-end).
  - throwing_away 4y ago
    I have a Ryzen 2600 (CPU not APU) and ECC works. I wonder what generation ECC fuses became a thing?
    - my123 4y ago
      ECC fused off was never a thing on the CPU-only dies, just on the APUs.

OJFord 4y ago

I realise that's blurrier when it comes to laptops, but AIUI it's more a case of whether the motherboard than supports it than about the AMD chip. i.e. given a desktop CPU, as far as I know you can put it in a motherboard that either does or does not support ECC RAM.

eternityforest 4y ago
I'm surprised nobody has made RAM with the ECC logic built into the ram itself, that just looks like normal ram to the CPU.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  It is called DDR5 - it has ECC built in the module itself. Making such a module does not make much sense if you cannot report the rate of errors, so if it is just hiding you have a bad RAM stick there is only so much value in having ECC.
  - simoncion 4y ago
    It is my understanding that the ECC that you're talking about only protects data-in-flight between the module and whatever is reading or writing the data. It does not protect against corruption of data-at-rest, which is what is protected with ECC in DDR4 and older. It's also my understanding that the DDR5 data-in-flight ECC is a mandatory feature because the link between the memory modules and everything else is so error-prone that the system would simply not function without it.
    - eternityforest 4y ago
      Taking a quick glace at the articles, I think it's the opposite, DDR5 protects data at rest only, because they want to make the chips so unreliable it can't work without it, not the bus. But in practice, it will probably be more reliable than DDR4 without ECC, since now you need 2 cosmic ray flips, or 1 plus a manufacturing defect flip, and the defect flips will probably be uncommon-ish. It's too bad data in flight isn't protected without old fashioned ECC on top of that, but it will probably be a big step up, the same way that flash memory is now very reliable even though the actual uncorrected errors are probably worse under the hood.
      - toast0 4y ago
        The problem with the DDR5 approach is there's no reporting mechanism, so while it will reduce the error rate of a marginal module, it doesn't let you know so you can replace it. In my experience with ECC modules, a module with some errors is a lot more likely to get more errors than one that's operating with zero errors.
        eternityforest 4y ago
        According to this post on Reddit there is reporting: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qjhvjg/are_ddr5_error_rates_actually_expected_to_be/hiqyc2g?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qjhvjg/are_ddr5_e... But even without it, it would be no worse than DDR4 with no ECC at all, where the only indication of bad ram is just that it crashes or memtest fails. It sounds like they intend to make the chips all slightly bad and then correct it, so a few errors here and there might not indicate a true bad stick that needs replacement anymore.
- IYasha 4y ago
  Having ECC being checked inside the CPU is actually useful as data loss may be induced by EMI (and other factors) on PCB data lines.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
That's right, but seeing how laptops seem to do the bare-minimum, I would be really surprised to learn than a random model, which doesn't advertise it, actually supports it.
my123 4y ago
Ryzen APUs, which include almost all AMD laptops, actually have ECC fused off in silicon unless you buy the "Pro" variant.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  Huh. I didn't know that. My particular laptop does have a "pro" CPU. However, I would be surprised to no end to learn that it supports ECC. This particular model sports an MBP-level price tag [0], but is absurdly cheaply built. Even for "customer facing components", that are easy to compare, such as the screen (terrible colors) and case (creaks if you look at it wrong). HP doesn't offer ECC RAM, not even as an upgrade, so I really don't think the additional lines are physically present. --- [0] I don't remember the specific number, but it was within 100 € of a 14" M1 MBP with 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. That's counting a RAM (8 -> 32) and SSD (256 -> 512) upgrade which were made with components bought separately (though they were rather high-end).
- throwing_away 4y ago
  I have a Ryzen 2600 (CPU not APU) and ECC works. I wonder what generation ECC fuses became a thing?
  - my123 4y ago
    ECC fused off was never a thing on the CPU-only dies, just on the APUs.