AMD based PC's, especially ones classed 'Workstations'

[HonestFlames]

I was lucky enough to buy an almost-new, second-hand AMD system based around the FX-8150 and ASUS Sabertooth motherboard.

I've been staunchly a self-builder of PC's since the days when 233MHz CPU's were considered quite fast. I know that serious workstations are supposed to be at least as stable and reliable as entry-level servers. My AMD system is currently performing great services to mankind, in the form of running multiple Minecraft server instances as well as the usual home server stuff (file/media sharing). The only way to maintain confidence in 24x7 reliability is with ECC RAM.

Cry as many might about speed, latency and "my system is stable without ECC RAM", I would argue "no, it ain't, not over the course of 12 months, where typically 8% of RAM will see one or more bits flipped in the course of a year" (source: Google study on RAM error rates).

My point is that one of the unique selling points of consumer AMD systems is the support for ECC RAM. I don't know if this is confined to particular motherboards, but the few searches I did on this topic over a year ago pointed to ASUS being a great supporter of ECC RAM on their AMD boards. PCS are already aligned with ASUS boards, so I can't really understand why the marketing guys haven't jumped on to the possibility of some reasonably inexpensive ECC RAM as a "super stable" option. RAID1 support is already an option for hard drives, so ECC RAM seems to me to be a logical extension.

Now, I do realise that the potential market of PCS may well be the overclocking and gaming crowd, but would it not be commercially viable to pander to the few of us who care more about stability than raw horsepower?

 

[PCS]

ECC RAM is very expensive indeed and with the failure rates on our Samsung/Kingston memory being well below 1% we don't get any calls for ECC RAM.

You're the first I've seen on our forums requesting this unfortunately...

 

[barlew]

I was lucky enough to buy an almost-new, second-hand AMD system based around the FX-8150 and ASUS Sabertooth motherboard.

I've been staunchly a self-builder of PC's since the days when 233MHz CPU's were considered quite fast. I know that serious workstations are supposed to be at least as stable and reliable as entry-level servers. My AMD system is currently performing great services to mankind, in the form of running multiple Minecraft server instances as well as the usual home server stuff (file/media sharing). The only way to maintain confidence in 24x7 reliability is with ECC RAM.

Cry as many might about speed, latency and "my system is stable without ECC RAM", I would argue "no, it ain't, not over the course of 12 months, where typically 8% of RAM will see one or more bits flipped in the course of a year" (source: Google study on RAM error rates).

My point is that one of the unique selling points of consumer AMD systems is the support for ECC RAM. I don't know if this is confined to particular motherboards, but the few searches I did on this topic over a year ago pointed to ASUS being a great supporter of ECC RAM on their AMD boards. PCS are already aligned with ASUS boards, so I can't really understand why the marketing guys haven't jumped on to the possibility of some reasonably inexpensive ECC RAM as a "super stable" option. RAID1 support is already an option for hard drives, so ECC RAM seems to me to be a logical extension.

Now, I do realise that the potential market of PCS may well be the overclocking and gaming crowd, but would it not be commercially viable to pander to the few of us who care more about stability than raw horsepower?

To be honest i would say that your average user doesnt even know what ECC RAM is let alone what sort of stabillity support it would give. This is the first time ive ever seen it requested by a private user.