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Xeon x5650, GA-X58A-UD5 and ECC Ram

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Euphratesrd

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Joined
May 29, 2017
Hey guys ! Some months ago I snatched up a pristine condition GA-X58A-UD5 in my local area (cost me only 20 dollars or so, when I convert TRL to USD :shock: ). Since I would hate to just sell it off , I recently ordered a x5650, got a FSP Windale 6 in a similar good local deal and got some MX-4. I plan to push this cpu as far as I possibly can :cool:. Yesterday while I was wandering around in used forums for some triple channel ram I came across some 1333mhz 8gb ECC ram for INCREDIBLY cheap. I was naturally intrigued, so I looked it up and saw a few forum posts of people that were able to run ECC ram on similar motherboards with Xeons. I'm about to pull the trigger and order 3 8gb sticks but I'm hesitant. I know next to nothing about ECC memory, will the memory being unbuffered or registered affect compability ? I wanted at least 1600mhz Ram, as I will probably use this pc for gaming, are the ECC memory modules overclockable ? Thanks in advance !
 
To use ECC ram a motherboard must be compatible with ECC. Most aren't but if it's a server class motherboard it probably is. ECC RAM doesn't perform as well as non ECC ram because of the error checking overhead. I don't know if they are overclockable.
 
Everything is overclockable to some extent.
Won't know how much till you try.
 
I have heard that in x58 platform the memory controller is on the CPU, so as long as the motherboard is capable of supporting a Xeon it is also capable of supporting ECC. This is just hearsay from some forums, could be complete bull though :). Anyways, do you think the performance hit would be worth it to get 24 gigs ? Since I will only be able to get at best 12 and at worst 6 with my budget if I decide to go non-ECC road.
 
Don't really want to spam, but I am torn up. Found some 1866mhz Reg. ECC ram, but the timings for 1866 is 13-13-13 and for 1600 11-11-11. I'm really not sure from gaming and workload perspective that if it is worth it or not, any input would be really appreciated.

https://www.skhynix.com/products.view.do?vseq=1024&cseq=75

This is the product I'm meaning to buy.
 
RAM isnt really a bottleneck so slower ram isnt typically an issue in gaming.

That said, 12GB is enough right now for gaming and if you do not actually use more than what you have, having more isnt helpful. Truth be told, id save the cash and put it towards a system upgrade. X58 is long in the tooth for gaming.
 
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