Comment by crote

Comment by crote 2 days ago

ECC memory is a bit like RAID: A consumer-level RAM stick will (traditionally) have 8 8-bit-wide chips operating basically in RAID-0 to provide 64-bit-wide access, whereas enterprise-level RAM sticks will operate with 9 8-bit-wide chips in something closer to RAID-4 or -5.

But they are all exactly the same chips. The ECC magic happens in the memory controller, not the RAM stick. Anyone buying ECC RAM for servers is buying on the same market as you building a new desktop computer.

kvemkon a day ago

> enterprise-level RAM sticks will operate with 9 8-bit-wide chips

Since DDR5 has 2 independent subchannels, 2 additional chips are needed.

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embedding-shape 2 days ago

> Anyone buying ECC RAM for servers is buying on the same market as you building a new desktop computer.

Even when the sticks are completely incompatible with each other? I think servers tend to use RDIMM, desktops use UDIMM. Personally I'm not seeing as step increase in (b2b) RDIMMs compared to the same stores selling UDIMM (b2c), but I'm also looking at different stores tailored towards different types of users.

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StrLght 2 days ago

The expensive part is DRAM chips. They drive prices for sticks.

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