Gaming Discussions

[kc5vdj]

I'm trying to put together a shopping list.

In the near future, I'll have a Threadripper 1950X on hand, and want to do it as a workstation (Face it, I have two machines that do perfectly fine for gaming already).

What kinds of and speeds of ECC RAM will it accept, and what is the maximum stick capacity that it can accept?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Not sure there are a lot of ECC memory types, server ECC memory is usually slow and meant to work h24/24 with the lowest chance of error possible.

You can find here some useful info, it's about EYPC but it's a good starting point to leverage: https://developer.amd.com/wp-content/resources/56301.pdf​

The max amount of memory supported by the 1950x is 128GB i think, 32GB dimm dual rank should work fine, i would avoid 64GB quad rank.
If one does not need 128GB it can get 64GB with 4x16GB single rank ECC like these: CRUCIAL 32GB (2 x 16GB) Single-Rank DDR4 2666MHz CL19 ECC Registered Memory | AVADirect​  <+ Not supported on TR, only for EPYC.​

[kc5vdj · Accepted solution]

I'm unaware of any boards that use registered dimms.

Been looking around, and what I have in mind for starters is either this:

Crucial 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 ECC UDIMM CT11003749 | ROG ZENITH EXTREME | Crucial.com

or this:

Crucial 64GB Kit (4 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 ECC UDIMM CT11004038 | ROG ZENITH EXTREME | Crucial.com

They are both CL19, just to add insult to the injury, but still, I'll have the reliability that I want for this workstation.

Still undecided on the motherboard though, the two finalists at this point are the ROG Zenith Extreme, and the GA X399 Designaire.  Tough call though.  Still leaning toward the Zenith, but it does have a couple of quirks that I have heard about, so I'm hoping someone with the Gigabyte board can tell me the things they don't like about it (Mohotashi has one, maybe he can tell me his complaints about the board).  The advantage to the Gigabyte board is the price, but bump that up by $80, because I'll be putting in the unopened Asus 10 GbE card I have that matches the one in the rig I'm on now, so that puts the Gigabyte board twenty dollars cheaper instead of $100 cheaper, but at the same time if I choose the Zenith board which comes with one, I'd still have a spare 10 GbE NIC hanging about for use in a future machine or as a spare in case one in use fails.

Choices.........

[Anonymous]

Hello,

You are right my bad sorry, TR does support only one kind of ECC memory among the ones available.
TR support only UDIMM's, unbuffered ECC dimm's and not the one i posted wrongly above that are RDIMM's, registered ECC supported by the EPYC platform.
RDIMM's would not work since TR motherboard miss the additional wiring needed to use the registered function, reserved to server board it seems.

I did not found any other kit better than the one you choose, you can also check if Samsung or Kingston modules are cheaper.
All offer the same kind of 16GB dual ranked sticks with lower clock and latencies, not sure what would be the best between 2400Mhz C17 or 2666Mhz C19.
I would go with the fastest and cheapest you could find, the price difference among these kits is not huge.
You can maybe inquire Samsung about the new UDIMM's it advertised, new single stick 32GB dual rank or even better 16GB stick single rank.

About the X399 motherboard choice, it really depend which features you will use the most, check carefully the users feedback about.
For sure i know the Zenith have a long long long thread of bug fixing on OCN, so i would check if the feature you plan using the most even work decently.
The same approach about the Designaire, i did not check particularly this board so dunno if it followed the same Zenith path or had a decent user support.
There are not a lot of differences between all the top X399 motherboard aside the price, i would really be sure that getting a 10gb Nic does not imply sacrificing another possible borked feature you actually intend to use.

For a workstation the features are really the core of you daily usage, just be sure that what you need from the motherboard do the job decently.

One can say in general that the X399 line were not the most exiting HEDT motherboard ever released aside the MSI MEG, even if the cpu for sure deserve some decent motherboard support.
Hope we will see a better start with the new generation of TR motherboard and not copy paste the X399 launch.

[kc5vdj]

Well, the motherboards I'm looking at are dual rank maximum.  ECC is generally reliable, and the only time I've ever seen ECC logging errors was on a SparcStation 5 in 1996.

We'll see what end up getting when I get it, I guess.  Still reading up on the memory issues.

Oh, and the 1950X can handle a Terabyte of RAM (in theory).

I am going to want RAM that I can upgrade to a full 128GB.  I am wanting to put Solidworks / ANSYS and some other tools on this box.  I did say it was going to be a workstation.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have no doubt that ECC is reliable, however i would be sure that any other feature you would need as storage management, bios, audio, lan, connected devices, etc, work without issues leveraging user feedback.
About the memory if you want 128GB ECC, i would wait to get the new 32GB dual ranked sticks.
Not sure the memory issues would be a concern looking at the UDIMM ECC low speed.
If you stay within what the cpu can support decently, like no more than 4 low speed sticks dual ranked, it should be fine.
Sadly i couldn't find any 32GB UDIMM ECC dual ranked stick to fit your need aside what i read coming out from Samsung.

TR would support a lot more ram in theory and also support the RDIMM's through hidden bios options i think, sad that the motherboard registered support have been taken down.
When we were speaking about TR motherboard costing more at launch, because of added pcb layer and traces for memory support, i thought the registered function would have been also included, limited to 128GB.