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ECC matters

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Re: ECC matters

#51

Post by minot »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #38
loeg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's real obnoxious of Intel to silo ECC support off into the Xeon line, isn't it? I switched to ECC memory in 2013 or 2014 with a Xeon E3 (fundamentally a Core i7 without the ECC support fused off) and of course a Xeon-supporting motherboard (with weird "server board" quirks: e.g., no on-board sound device). I love that AMD doesn't intentionally break ECC on its consumer desktop platforms and upgraded to the T…

Doesn't intel make ECC available on the i3 line of CPUs?

I was going to say no but I just checked and at least ONE latest generation i3 processor supports ECC

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?pro...

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/208074/...

Problem is this processor is an Embedded processor so probably not for us

> Industrial Extended Temp, Embedded Broad Market Extended Temp

My understanding is Intel does not support ECC on the desktop unless you pay extra.

Re: ECC matters

#52

Post by tokamak-teapot »

simias wrote: post #9

I used to be pretty skeptical of ECC for consumer-grade hardware, mainly because I felt that I'd always prefer cheaper/more RAM over ECC RAM even if it meant that I'd get a couple of crash every year due to rogue bitflips. For servers it's a different story, but for a desktop I'm fine dealing with some instability for better performance. But these days with the RAM density being so high and bitflipping attacks being…

Are there any Ryzen boards that support ECC and actually correct errors?

Re: ECC matters

#53

Post by miahi »

1996 wrote: post #30

Linus is absolutely right. I am trying to get a laptop with dual NVMe (for ZFS) and ECC RAM. I can't get that, at all - even without the other fancy things I would like such as a 4k OLED with pen/touchscreen. In 2020, even the Dell XPS stopped shipping OLED (goodbye dear 7390!) I will gladly give my money to anyone who sells AMD laptop with ECC. Hopefully, it will show there's demand for "high end yet non bulky lapto…

Lenovo P53 has 3 NVMe slots, 4k OLED with touchscreen (and optional pen) and up to 128GB ECC RAM if you choose the Xeon processor. It's big and heavy, but it exists.

I hope AMD will create a better market for the ECC laptop memory (right now it's hard to find + expensive).

Re: ECC matters

#54

Post by type0 »

Consumer awareness about ECC needs to be better, with recent security implications I simply can't understand why more motherboard manufacturers don't support it on AMD. Intel of course is all to blame on the blue side, I stopped buying their overpriced Xeons because of this.

Re: ECC matters

#55

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #47

Seems likely that “bad ram” was the reason for the recent AT&T fiber issues, given that 1 bit was being flipped reliably in data packets [1] [1]: https://twitter.com/catfish_man/status/1335373029245775872?l...

I think you meant seems unlikely

Re: ECC matters

#56

Post by opencl »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #38
loeg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's real obnoxious of Intel to silo ECC support off into the Xeon line, isn't it? I switched to ECC memory in 2013 or 2014 with a Xeon E3 (fundamentally a Core i7 without the ECC support fused off) and of course a Xeon-supporting motherboard (with weird "server board" quirks: e.g., no on-board sound device). I love that AMD doesn't intentionally break ECC on its consumer desktop platforms and upgraded to the T…

Doesn't intel make ECC available on the i3 line of CPUs?

They used to support ECC in the desktop i3 lineup, current gen does not have ECC except in some embedded SKUs.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199280/...

Re: ECC matters

#57

Post by makomk »

minot wrote: post #51
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't intel make ECC available on the i3 line of CPUs?

I was going to say no but I just checked and at least ONE latest generation i3 processor supports ECC https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?pro... https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/208074/... Problem is this processor is an Embedded processor so probably not for us > Industrial Extended Temp, Embedded Broad Market Extended Temp My understanding is Intel does not support ECC on th…

Yeah, that appears to be a BGA-packaged processor designed to be permanently soldered to the board of some embedded device, not something that you can install in your desktop at all. I'm not sure why Intel decided to brand their embedded processors with ECC as i3, though I suspect the reason this range exists at all is because companies were going with competitors like AMD instead due to their across-the-board ECC support.

Re: ECC matters

#58

Post by dijit »

bitcharmer wrote: post #34
freeqaz wrote: post #10

I bought ECC RAM for my laptop and it definitely was about 4x the price. It's valuable to me for a few reasons -- peace of mind being a big one. Bit flips happen and are real. I really wish ECC was plentiful and not brutally expensive!

This is the first time I hear about a laptop that supports ECC memory. Could you please share the make and model?

I have a Dell Precision 5520 (chassis of an XPS 15) which has a Xeon and ECC memory.

Finding a memory upgrade seems difficult though.

Re: ECC matters

#59

Post by cyberlurker »

davidw wrote: post #46
bitcharmer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system on Earth, at sea level, with 4 GB of RAM has a 96% percent chance of having a bit error in three days without ECC RAM. With ECC RAM, that goes down to 1.67e-10 or about one chance in six billions. So I'd say ECC is not only important but insanely impactful. There's a reason why many organizations don't even want to hear about getting rigs with non-ECC memory.

Could you measure altitude with memory?

If the 96% every 3 days is true, you could approximate based on that. But it would be a really slow measurement.

Re: ECC matters

#60

Post by tomxor »

davidw wrote: post #46
bitcharmer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system on Earth, at sea level, with 4 GB of RAM has a 96% percent chance of having a bit error in three days without ECC RAM. With ECC RAM, that goes down to 1.67e-10 or about one chance in six billions. So I'd say ECC is not only important but insanely impactful. There's a reason why many organizations don't even want to hear about getting rigs with non-ECC memory.

Could you measure altitude with memory?

:D yes, although I expect you would need either a prohibitively large quantity of memory or a extremely slow rate of change in altitude to effectively measure it.
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