AMD vs Intel for small business server

Bubba-Hotepp said:

1)As I said before, where data integrity is crucial then ECC is a must.

2)And I have yet to see any (who knows maybe there are a handful out there somewhere) non server AMD motherboards that support ECC memory.

Click to expand...

I agree with the first part, though my opinion seems to be in a minority on these forums.

As for the second part. I presume you have heard of Asus? I think they are the largest manufacturer of motherboards. Every one of their motherboards for the AM2, AM2+, AM3, and AM3+ support ECC.

I happen to own 2 of them. In fact my AM2+ motherboards support chipkill ECC, which is 4 bit detect and 3 bit correct. While piledriver isn't as power efficient as the new Intel processors, the previous generation of processors is much more power efficient. I wouldn't recommend Piledriver for a datacenter, but for home use AMD can provide a low cost ECC solution. Intel charges quite a premium for processors that support ECC. The old pIII supported ECC, which is why I have 2 running dual pIII systems. I heard that steamroller will be much more power efficient, but I decided not to wait and buy a dual L5520 system.

Bubba! Long time no see!

Yeah, this is a consumer level forum, not enterprise. That is why that opinion, though correct, is in the extreme minority. IN this case though, it would be a consideration.

As I stated before, I work in a data center and all the servers have ECC memory, and with good reason. I have never run ECC memory and never lost data due to bad memory. For most users here, its just not worth it to go AMD for that + premium for the slow ram, or pay the premium on the Intel side + the premium for the ram... which the fastest on newegg is 1600Mhz at CL11. Terribly loose timings. If it is worth it for ya, go for it! We are not here to stop anyone, just inform them of both sides so they can make an informed decision.

Its not worth it for most here due to cost and the type of system they are running in the first place.

EDIT: Re: HIPPA and the servers being bolted to the ground... you are right, for a data center environment. I think this is just going to be a single box though, not a rack with several servers in it. It has been a few weeks since I passed the CDCDP (Certified Data Center Design Professional) classes, but I recall that being for a rack based system, not for a single small tower.

lopgok said:

The only non-server mb that I have found that has support is Asus. That is why my last 2 AMD builds have used Asus mb's. I know that no consumer ecs, gigabyte, msi mb supports ECC. I asked a gigabyte rep about it last year, and he didn't even know what ECC was.

Click to expand...

I have gotten conformations from Gigabyte and Asrock both that all of there 990 based AMD boards support ECC memory but since that is not the target market they do not publish that they support it nor do they do QVL testing to determine what works with the boards.

The real question is do any of the consumer level boards support registered ECC memory??? No one seems to have an answer for that, but my guess is probably not.

ssjwizard said:

I have gotten conformations from Gigabyte and Asrock both that all of there 990 based AMD boards support ECC memory but since that is not the target market they do not publish that they support it nor do they do QVL testing to determine what works with the boards.

The real question is do any of the consumer level boards support registered ECC memory??? No one seems to have an answer for that, but my guess is probably not.

Click to expand...

i have read a few Gigabyte manuals for amd motherboards, and I have not seen any settings for background scrub speed, or anything else ECC related.

I also have not seen any non-opteron boards support registered memory. The purpose for registered memory is to support a whole bunch of memory. The current crop of Asus AMD motherboards have up to 4 slots, and support up to 64gb of ram. If you need more, you will need a more expensive motherboard. I think most small business servers should be fine with 4 slots for memory.

According to gigabyte when you install ECC memory on a AMD 990 board the options for ECC will be revealed in BIOS. I assume Asrock is doing something similar. Anyways I think we have drug this far enough off topic.

@op
I would have to say for a general file server / medium usage system you describe either an 8 core AMD or the Intel chip you listed will be plenty sufficient. The real difference at this level would be # of PCI-e slots. If you think your going to need 1 or 2 raid cards + other PCI-e hardware you get more slots on an AMD 990FX than an equivalent Intel board.

EarthDog said:

Bubba! Long time no see!

Yeah, this is a consumer level forum, not enterprise. That is why that opinion, though correct, is in the extreme minority. IN this case though, it would be a consideration.

As I stated before, I work in a data center and all the servers have ECC memory, and with good reason. I have never run ECC memory and never lost data due to bad memory. For most users here, its just not worth it to go AMD for that + premium for the slow ram, or pay the premium on the Intel side + the premium for the ram... which the fastest on newegg is 1600Mhz at CL11. Terribly loose timings. If it is worth it for ya, go for it! We are not here to stop anyone, just inform them of both sides so they can make an informed decision.

Its not worth it for most here due to cost and the type of system they are running in the first place.

EDIT: Re: HIPPA and the servers being bolted to the ground... you are right, for a data center environment. I think this is just going to be a single box though, not a rack with several servers in it. It has been a few weeks since I passed the CDCDP (Certified Data Center Design Professional) classes, but I recall that being for a rack based system, not for a single small tower.

Click to expand...

What's up ED, what's new in your neck of the woods. I've been busy with classes and a 4 yr old. I did it. I broke down and picked up a haswell

Back on topic: I completely agree with you as far as 99 percent of the people on this forum have little to no need to even look at ECC memory. The OP though is upgrading a server in a small doctors office which is exactly what I just did this weekend (did the swap and lots of hair pulling that is) although in my case it's for a psychiatric office. Probably a good thing because I think I'm going to need some valium with my heartburn and migraine medicine when I'm done. They may have been over interpreting the rules when they informed the office of that HIPPA "hit" during the inspection but it's my understanding from the way they explained it is that the "bolt down" requirement is for any piece of equipment that contains confidential patient information that is not behind a locked door, which in their case was a tower server in an alcove in the basement office area blocked off by a curtain and anyone can walk by. Generally speaking non employees shouldn't be down there but there is still a chance someone could wander by. That explanation is also why I set up a GPO on the new server for folder redirect and have set rules preventing everyone from saving files on their workstations. It all might be overkill but I would rather they be way over the requirements then fall short and get dinged during an inspection and pay fines.

As far as any home users reading this, unless you're running some critical absolutely cannot tolerate any errors whatsoever software (which I can't think of anything a home user would run that would fall into that category) then you shouldn't be looking at ECC memory at all. I would rather pay the same amount for blazing fast non ECC memory with awesome timings.

I still stand by my original recommendation. If you're buying a server for a small business you can't beat the small tower servers from Dell like the PowerEdge T110 II. Normally the opposite is true but, by the time you add up the CPU (even an AMD CPU), MB, memory, HDD, Case, PSU etc. AND the license for Win Server XX, you're either at the same price or higher (most of the time higher) than buying it prebuilt from Dell. HP was pricey on the other hand and Lenova while still in the running was a bit higher priced then Dell (I was shocked at that).

Now you have me curious, exactly which AMD CPUs and motherboards function with ECC RAM?

woboy said:

Now you have me curious, exactly which AMD CPUs and motherboards function with ECC RAM?

Click to expand...

The FX series support unbuffered and unregistered ECC memory. I'm not sure about the piledriver APU's. They're based on the same architecture so maybe but I don't know off the top of my head. Asus supports it in at least some of their MB's apparently (refer to the previous poster) but I'll leave that to others to dig through the white papers or manuals for that. It's not advertised in the tech specs in the product info as far as I could see.

As to the previous poster, okay, I'll capitulate that you're probably right about AM3+ ECC memory support from some manufacturers. That STILL ignores the fact that for a server in a business environment where the server will be running 24/7 365 it doesn't make any sense at all to build an FX based AMD server. Let's even hypothetically say that the AMD build will shave off even $400 off the cost. I can guarantee that the $400 savings will disappear when you factor in the increased energy cost over 5 years (the "average" life of a server) and definitely go in the opposite direction and easily be a higher total cost in a business setting like the one I'm working on that will run that same server for probably 6-8 years like they did the last one. Just so they can what? Say that they bought AMD? I've got a soft spot in my heart for AMD and I'll root for them as the underdog all day long, but I'm not going to tell someone to make foolish business choices just to be an AMD fan.

woboy said:

Now you have me curious, exactly which AMD CPUs and motherboards function with ECC RAM?

Click to expand...

All AM2, AM2+, AM3 and AM3+ cpus.
All opteron cpus.
All Asus motherboards that support the above cpu's.

If I was building a small business server, it would have ECC.

as far as the HIPAA concern goes i see more of a networking dilemma than a server hardware one. the concern in a small office scenario would be the ability to vlan and subnet the patient information from the rest of the network.

if you're talking a small office with less than 10 employees i'd imagine consumer/recreational hardware will get you where you're going. if you grow to "branch office" sizes with 20+ users on a network then i would draw the line and go enterprise.

you know your situation best.