ram ECC VS GAMING

[Cripple [Crip]]

Hello everybody so im building my friend a PC and its going to have a Xeon X5550 but theres one problem the ram max speed that it supports is 1333 but the only ram i can find with 1333MHz is ECC ram or server ram now is there a difference between ECC ram and the normal RAM gamers use. Now is there a difference performance wise?

[HPWebcamAble]

5 minutes ago, Cripple [Crip] said:

is there a difference between ECC ram and the normal RAM gamers use. Now is there a difference performance wise?

Yes, price. ECC RAM is almost always more expensive.

 

Will you be using the PC for gaming, and have you already acquired the Xeon?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Normally the same performance. You can also use non ecc ram in those mobo's, but it will downclock to 1333.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, HPWebcamAble said:

Yes, price. ECC RAM is almost always more expensive.

 

Will you be using the PC for gaming, and have you already acquired the Xeon?

Not for used stuff. You can 128gb or ddr3 ecc for about 100.

[Cripple [Crip]]

Ok so the Mobo is a Gigabyte UD5 x58 i have not bought the Xeon yet but for 30 dollars i really cant go wrong the ECC ram is cheaper than the fancy gamer ram and the mobo is not a server one but it supports xeons

[agent_x007]

I'm 90% sure that the speed of memory (RAM) is controlled by MB (ie. what You set in BIOS), and not by Intel spec.
At least in case of X58/X79/X99 platforms and other high end desktop chipsets.

[Cripple [Crip]]

So i did some snooping around and it turns out for lets say my cpu supports ram up to 1366Mhz if i buy ram 1866Mhz it would detect the extra 500MHz as if i was overclocking the ram,but does ECC memory run better than gaming memory in Xeon based builds,talking about gaming performance

[SLAYR]

47 minutes ago, Cripple [Crip] said:

So i did some snooping around and it turns out for lets say my cpu supports ram up to 1366Mhz if i buy ram 1866Mhz it would detect the extra 500MHz as if i was overclocking the ram,but does ECC memory run better than gaming memory in Xeon based builds,talking about gaming performance

The memory won't make games run faster,  but if you have a desktop x58 board they will not support ddr3 registered ecc, you will have to find ddr3 unregistered/unbuffered usually labeled as ddr3-10600e for 1333, ddr3 registered will say ddr3-10600r.

[OddsCrazyStuff]

1 hour ago, agent_x007 said:

I'm 90% sure that the speed of memory (RAM) is controlled by MB (ie. what You set in BIOS), and not by Intel spec.
At least in case of X58/X79/X99 platforms and other high end desktop chipsets.

Its CPU limit first, then MB limited.

At least as far as max speed is concerned.

[agent_x007]

MB is first in this case, because you can set whatever you want in BIOS/UEFI.

If it doesn't boot - IMC/RAM are at fault (because they may not be able to handle higher speed), BUT different CPU/RAM (same MB) can't limit the value you can set in BIOS/UEFI.

@up To be clear : Why CPU is the limit to you ?
I can agree that IMC may not be able to handle 24GB at 2GHz in this case, but it should at least be able to do 1600MHz with the same 24GB configuration.

[SLAYR]

2 hours ago, agent_x007 said:

I'm 90% sure that the speed of memory (RAM) is controlled by MB (ie. what You set in BIOS), and not by Intel spec.
At least in case of X58/X79/X99 platforms and other high end desktop chipsets.

The memory controller is a part of the cpu die on all of those.

 

skylake's controller is on the board though.

[agent_x007]

9 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

The memory controller is a part of the cpu die on all of those.

 

skylake's controller is on the board though.

True, but in itself, it doesn't set at what frequency RAM will work - BIOS/UEFI does that (even with [AUTO] selected on DRAM Frequency) and we (ie. users), control UEFI/BIOS settings.

Skylake IMC is "on-die" with rest of the CPU, and I'm pretty sure it can't go anywhere (at least in the foreseeable future)

[OddsCrazyStuff]

2 hours ago, agent_x007 said:

MB is first in this case, because you can set whatever you want in BIOS/UEFI.

If it doesn't boot - IMC/RAM are at fault (because they may not be able to handle higher speed), BUT different CPU/RAM (same MB) can't limit the value you can set in BIOS/UEFI.

@up To be clear : Why CPU is the limit to you ?
I can agree that IMC may not be able to handle 24GB at 2GHz in this case, but it should at least be able to do 1600MHz with the same 24GB configuration.

If I put 3000MHz ram into the board with a Xeon, so will the Xeon limits the speed to 2133MHz, as that is what its max rated for (at least in my case).

The motherboard might be able to overclock the ram, in the same way some can overclock the Xeon, but there is no guaranty it will work.

[agent_x007]

I'm guessing you have X99 Xeon ?