VIA K8T800 Pro does ECC memory?

[uOpt]

Subject says it all: does the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset support (and use) ECC RAM?

Their website doesn't say anything about it directly.

The specified RAM module liste for some mainboards (e.g. ABIT K8V-pro) says they qualified some ECC modules, but obviously that doesn't mean that ECC is actually used, just that it's presence doesn't hurt.

 

[IntegraGSR]

according to everest my abit kv8 pro with k8t800 pro chipset supports ECC but not ChipKill ECC (not sure what this is)

 

[Peter]

No it doesn't.

Why?

Because Athlon-64 chipsets do not contain the RAM controller AT ALL.

It's in the CPU - and yes, all Athlon-64 and Opteron CPUs support ECC. ChipKill* ECC to be precise.

(*) Remember that the use of this ECC algorithm is possible only on DIMMs that are made from "x4" geometry chips. DIMMs made from x8 or x16 chips can't.

 

[uOpt]

Ah, that explains why Via didn't say anything.

Obviously the mainboard vendors can still disable the use of ECC by just not plotting the lanes, I assume.

Thanks, guys.

 

[Peter]

Of course the mainboard's layout and its BIOS must implement the usage of ECC DIMMs. But it's not like you'd actually save anything by leaving this out ... just eight traces and a BIOS feature that's present in the reference code anyway.

ChipKill btw is a special implementation of ECC that lets the machine survive the loss of an entire RAM chip without data failure - as long as it is a 4-bit-wide chip.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Peter
ChipKill btw is a special implementation of ECC that lets the machine survive the loss of an entire RAM chip without data failure - as long as it is a 4-bit-wide chip.

Thanks, I will definitely be leaving it enabled on my Master2 then.

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: Peter
Of course the mainboard's layout and its BIOS must implement the usage of ECC DIMMs. But it's not like you'd actually save anything by leaving this out ... just eight traces and a BIOS feature that's present in the reference code anyway.

ChipKill btw is a special implementation of ECC that lets the machine survive the loss of an entire RAM chip without data failure - as long as it is a 4-bit-wide chip.