Registered ECC or ECC or NON ECC

[MicroSun]

Hello,

I know this ECC non ECC topic was discussed a lot of time, but I have a little bit different aspect.

I want to build a low-end server what means for me a normal nForce4 mobo with an AMD Athlon X2 CPU and ~4GB memory. In this case I want to use ECC RAM.

Is there any mobo which supports the ECC RAMs?
Besides this I don't know what is the difference between ECC and Registered ECC.
And what is the difference
- 400MHz DDR ECC Registered CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM Dual Rank, x4 and
- 400MHz DDR ECC Registered CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM Dual Rank, x8

The prices of the 1GB (400MHz) Kingston RAM where I can buy them are the following:
NON ECC: ~110$
ECC : ~120$
ECC Registered x4 : ~180$
ECC Registered x8 : ~130$

So for me the normal ECC makes no big difference but the rgistered x4 is quite expensive.

I know a real server mobo with opteron will be better but here an opteron mobo alone costs the same as an nForce4 mobo with 4GB RAM.

Thats all at the moment

[rmanet]

try here (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=167121&highlight=registered+ecc) for a sysopt thread on the topic, and here (http://corsairmicro.com/memory_basics/153707/index.html) for a complete memory presentation from Corsair - hope this helps and welcome to sysopt :t

[MicroSun]

Thanks for the info! The links are very good :)

[Peter M]

ECC: Data width of the DIMM is 72 bits not 64, to enable the machine to store data in a redundant, error correction enabling fashion.

Registered DIMM: Has extra isolation chips (the "registers") plus a clock hub ("PLL") on the DIMM. This takes load off the common RAM bus, enabling the use of more DIMMs as well as DIMMs with more chips on.

x4, x8: Tells you the data width of the individual RAM chips. Using x4 chips enables capable chipsets to use a special ECC mode called "ChipKill". In this mode, the system can lose an entire RAM chip without losing data.

With an Athlon X2, you need non-ECC unbuffered DIMMs - plain desktop ware.

[sm8000]

Try this thread (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138190) for more info on ECC (and on Registered) memory.