Verrified List of Threadripper X399 Motherboards that function in ECC mode

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am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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So I've read all the forums about X399 and threadripper supporting ecc and nothing seems conclusive. Lots of rumors when it first came out. I'd like to know if anyone out there has actually verified that their ecc ram running on an x399 mobo is actually running in ecc mode and which x399 board they are using. Lots of motherboards will accept udimm ecc but but in non ecc mode so merely booting with ecc ram installed isnt enough to verify its ecc functionality.
 

TomUK

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Aug 30, 2017
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It's been tested where I work (not by me but I do trust the guy) with the top of the line ASrock and got it working as expected with Crucial ECC 2400 (only 2 dimms were available so not known beyond that).
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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It's been tested where I work (not by me but I do trust the guy) with the top of the line ASrock and got it working as expected with Crucial ECC 2400 (only 2 dimms were available so not known beyond that).

cool. Do you know what method was used to verify that ecc was actually functioning.
 

TomUK

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Aug 30, 2017
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I don't know the specifics I'm afraid, but if I had to hazard a guess I would think a combination dmidecode/edac-utils/mcelog with some silly memory settings to force errors and check the right log entries showed up, or a system halt if the right piece of memory was hit at the right moment - took a couple of days to do it and a custom kernel was needed to support the hardware

Edit - I'll try and get the specifics when I'm back in the office next week
 

RBE

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Sep 5, 2017
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If your use case for Threadripper requires ECC memory, why not look at putting together an EPYC based build instead? With something like the Supermicro H11SSL-i motherboard, you get guaranteed support for up to 1TB of registered ECC DDR4 2666MHz memory with all the benefits this brings, i.e. an increase in memory speed and the ability to detect double-bit errors. The cost of the Supermicro motherboard plus an EPYC 7281 is currently $1,036 on Newegg, which compares well to an Asrock Taichi X399 plus 1950X at $1,297. Just a thought.
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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If your use case for Threadripper requires ECC memory, why not look at putting together an EPYC based build instead? With something like the Supermicro H11SSL-i motherboard, you get guaranteed support for up to 1TB of registered ECC DDR4 2666MHz memory with all the benefits this brings, i.e. an increase in memory speed and the ability to detect double-bit errors. The cost of the Supermicro motherboard plus an EPYC 7281 is currently $1,036 on Newegg, which compares well to an Asrock Taichi X399 plus 1950X at $1,297. Just a thought.

Great question. I get this all the time. I run mostly windows 10 client VMs. windows like cores, but it loves clock speed. So these large core low clock cpus, they run windows guests fine, but not great. If it were not for that I would run epyc probably solely. ecc udimm's really hurt. But I so also run ZFS storage aswell on the same box and I dont think i can really feel good about ZFS without ecc
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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Also you can get a Threadripper 1950x for 729$ + tax at microcenter if you live near one. then add in 300$ish for a x399 board and you're really looking at around 1100$
 

Aluminum

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Sep 7, 2012
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I've logged errors with b-die ecc on all my asrock x399.

Not too hard to do, overclock ram to the moon (despite what intel has convinced people, ecc is helpful for this) and hope it actually makes it past post! Then check logs, in windows they are WHEA in event viewer. Heat is a known factor too, my back slots nearest VRM heatsik are usually 5C warmer and seem to flag first.

That being said, all those dimms are stable 2933 or above (1.35V) long term. Buy smart, Buy B-die.

Its only been during some of my fun attempts at high speeds/stock voltage and low cas like 3200C14 or 3600C15 that these happen. The hardest part is actually getting a full post with bleeding edge settings, the ram trainer or whatever it does during that boot cycle after settings change is pretty picky which is mostly a good thing. The zen IMC definitely has its limits too, you might hit those before the ram.

Or you could just point a hairdryer at your ram with real time logging and watch for errors before a total crash, YMMV.
 
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am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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I've logged errors with b-die ecc on all my asrock x399.

Not too hard to do, overclock ram to the moon (despite what intel has convinced people, ecc is helpful for this) and hope it actually makes it past post! Then check logs, in windows they are WHEA in event viewer. Heat is a known factor too, my back slots nearest VRM heatsik are usually 5C warmer and seem to flag first.

That being said, all those dimms are stable 2933 or above (1.35V) long term. Buy smart, Buy B-die.

Its only been during some of my fun attempts at high speeds/stock voltage and low cas like 3200C14 or 3600C15 that these happen. The hardest part is actually getting a full post with bleeding edge settings, the ram trainer or whatever it does during that boot cycle after settings change is pretty picky which is mostly a good thing. The zen IMC definitely has its limits too, you might hit those before the ram.

Or you could just point a hairdryer at your ram with real time logging and watch for errors before a total crash, YMMV.
2933 is pretty fast, i was under the impression that 2400 was really the fastest available udimm ecc out there, although looking now i think i see 2666. which ram chips did you clock up. Since I'm looking at threadripper ofr server activity i'm not too interested in overclocking but I would consider a small bump which is yet another advantage in going with a epyc system. even +300mhz on the cpu would be nice
 

Aluminum

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Sep 7, 2012
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2933 is slow for b-die. A "typical" premium kit is 3200 C14-14-14.

OEMs like gskill take stock "2133/2400/2666" b-die chips from samsung, "bin" them (supposedly) and can run some of them all the way up to 4666 now. Pretty sure I saw a bare shot of one of the 4000+ kits was just plain old 2133 bgas. Samsung actually sells stock 3200 dies at 1.2V ("in mass production") but I've not seen any actual kits with them - its not even a JEDEC speed yet.

The only reason you don't see faster ECC is the intersection of "factory overclocked ram" and "servers" has been zero before threadripper happened. (which is really anything not JEDEC and not officially supported in the cpu spec sheet: ryzen 2xxx are the first cpus to list 2933 official) Xeons always hard lock the memory speeds.

I don't count the few dozen of us on the planet that bothered to source unlocked xeons and put them on desktop boards, intel killed that completely after haswell anyways (may they be infested with the fleas from a thousand camels for that).

Zen ecc ram shopping, buy smart, buy b-die:
M391A1K43BB1: 8GB sr
M391A2K43BB1: 16GB dr
F24EA8GS: 8GB sr
F24EB16GS, F24VEB16GS: 16GB dr

For non-ecc shopping you want 3200 14-14-14, 3600 15-15-15, 3600 16-16-16 or better. Pay special attention to all 3 cas timings, otherwise it might be hynix or micron, not worth the trouble on amd. Gskill and Team are the only brands I see that regularly sell these kits, don't bother with Corsair.

Personally I go for ecc, it takes a little more effort to dial in timings but same price range, sometimes cheaper! Ram is nuts now.
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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hmm, nevermind... i think i kinda got my answer. Looks like all these X399 MB only support ecc udimm so the ram i was asking about are rdimm so i guess that's a no....

Have anyone tried 16gb rdimm in these boards just for the heck of it?
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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Rdimm will never work in any work that needs udimm only. Cant think of any example where that isnt the case.
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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yah, i learned my lesson with x79 MB (the non cheap chinese MB)... there is no rdimm support even when using e5 cpu...

for x99, the situation is different in that there are a few MB that support rdimm... seem like the 16gb ecc rdimm are cheaper than the 16gb non ecc udimm

i got several 16gb ddr4 rdimm and was hoping i can also use it in x399. i guess that won't ever happen... must be something specifict to TR? AMD not allowing TR to rob their epyc line?
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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There is RDIMM support for some X79 motherboards...
16gb rdimm support? Which one?

The only one i know so far is the cheap chinese MB (which are c602 based), supermicro x9sra and if you count the MB from lenovo S30. iguess you can count dell or HP WS MB but they are not even regular ATX standard plug or layout....

i tested asus p9x79 and that was a no go. tested also gigabyte x79s-up5-wifi with the c606 chipset and that was also a no go. there seems to be no true X79 chipset based MB that will support rdimm
 

zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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X99 do seem to support RDIMM

The LGA 2011/2011-3 platforms are hybrid UDIMM and RDIMM, you can use either. I suppose that it may be possible that a given Motherboard like X79/X99 uses another memory wiring layout that is hardwired for UDIMM only since they are not expected to use RDIMM. However, some manufacturers uses the same PCB for both their Xeons E5 (Which oficially supports both UDIMM and RDIMM) and Core i7 HEDT (Which oficially supports UDIMM only), like Supermicro with their X10SRA and C7X99-OCE, so it may be possible that RDIMM works in those since Intel doesn't seem to restrict RDIMM support if the Xeon E5 is used with the consumer Chipsets (I'm not sure if Core i7 HEDT works with RDIMM or Intel limits Processor support. ECC itself is optional, so the module should work).
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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X99 do seem to support RDIMM

The LGA 2011/2011-3 platforms are hybrid UDIMM and RDIMM, you can use either. I suppose that it may be possible that a given Motherboard like X79/X99 uses another memory wiring layout that is hardwired for UDIMM only since they are not expected to use RDIMM. However, some manufacturers uses the same PCB for both their Xeons E5 (Which oficially supports both UDIMM and RDIMM) and Core i7 HEDT (Which oficially supports UDIMM only), like Supermicro with their X10SRA and C7X99-OCE, so it may be possible that RDIMM works in those since Intel doesn't seem to restrict RDIMM support if the Xeon E5 is used with the consumer Chipsets (I'm not sure if Core i7 HEDT works with RDIMM or Intel limits Processor support. ECC itself is optional, so the module should work).

I was referring to true X79 chipset MB... I havent come across one that support rdimm yet. the cheap chinese X79 are c602 based. but true X79 boards like asus p9x79 doesn't seem to support rdimm...
 

zir_blazer

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Dec 5, 2016
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I was referring to true X79 chipset MB... I havent come across one that support rdimm yet. the cheap chinese X79 are c602 based. but true X79 boards like asus p9x79 doesn't seem to support rdimm...
What do you mean by "true X79"? If it is C602 based it is C602, not X79, so I don't get where the "true X79" thing comes from. Though, I have seen weird things like the Gigabyte GA-AB350M-DS3H that is AMD X370 based but Gigabyte puts B350 in the model name supposedly for marketing reasons. Do the chinese "X79" do something like that?

Still, my post was about that it was both possible that you can use RDIMM in the consumer Chipset but not on a particular board because it is wired for UDIMM only.