Will regular DDR3 DIMMS work on servers?

[Goi]

Hi,

I have a IBM x3620 M3 server with an Intel Xeon E5506 CPU and I wish to upgrade its memory. According to the specs at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/tips0806.html#memory it supports up to PC3-10600 memory. Intel's page on the E5506 at http://ark.intel.com/products/37096/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5506-4M-Cache-2_13-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI says it supports DDR3-800 memory. Will regular PC3 memory work or is there some special server class memory that I have to buy? Is there anything I need to be aware of? Voltage? FB-DIMM? ECC?

Thanks!

 

[dawp]

it should work you just wont have the data protection you would with ecc dimms. just make sure it's no higher that 1.5v.

The server supports both 1.5 V and 1.35 V DIMMs. However, mixing the DIMMs with different voltage is not supported. Only systems with Intel Xeon 5600 series processors support the 1.35 V DIMMs.

 

[nanaki333]

No they will not. A lot of server boards are very picky, especially supermicro and Asus. I still had to use ecc with a pentium g620t on a supermicro system anyway.
Back in the c2d/c2q days with ddr2, they more more forgiving. I still have some c2q based servers in action with desktop memory. They're just file severs so don't really care about ecc anyway.

 

[Goi]

Bummer. It doesn't seem to detect my regular DDR3 memory, and the BIOS doesn't seem to have any options to disable data protection/ECC either.

 

[sub.mesa]

More than often you really need registered memory (RDIMM) instead of unbuffered memory (UDIMM). RDIMM without ECC is rare, but UDIMM comes in both ECC and non-ECC. In other cases you can install both UDIMM and RDIMM, but only the maximum capacity can be utilised with RDIMM; UDIMM would be limited to 4 modules or up to 32GiB for example.

In most cases, contact the manufacturer or supplier. It should tell you what kind of memory you need.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Probably not, especially not IBM, they tend to be very specific. Look at the ram that's in already and order that EXACT part number. A revision off may even not work.

 

[xqzit]

Hello Everybody!!!

@Goi - IBM System x3620 M3 does not support DDR3 Unbuffered Non-ECC memory, also it does not support Unbuffered ECC memory. The only memory it supports is Registered ECC (RDIMM).

When you are going for a memory upgrade, always go with the system specification rather than the Processor. The systems are specifically designed to support only some type of memory especially in servers, sometimes they may not even support some memory which the processor supports. It all comes to the the Motherboard. In your case Intel says it supports DDR3-800 memory according to IBM it supports only DDR3-1066 (PC3-8500) and DDR3-1333 (PC3-10600).

You can refer the manual for the exact memory specification.

You will find these memory in these online shops - Crucial.com or Memorystock.com

Good luck with the upgrade!! Let me know how it works out!! Wish I has seen this post earlier.
Regards,
Xqzit

 

[tweakboy]

Whats the point of running server if your not going to use the ECC RAM ? Most people get Xeon just for the ECC function. gl Also allows for more RAM also doesn't overclock either.

 

[colonelciller]

to follow up on what xqzit said, i'd really suggest you to find a list of tested (supported) dimms directly from IBM. i tried their support site and wasn't too impressed by its lack of user frendliness... and a quick check for your system revealed more than a dozen different system #'s within the x3620 spec.

IBM should have a list of the exact dimms (down to the exact 16ish digit model #'s)

 

[mrblotto]

This may help:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/xbc/cog/x3620m3_7376/x3620m3_7376mem.html

 

[Emulex]

RDIMM ecc 8gb crucial work on all nehalem servers. $55-65 is the going price for 8gb. you install in 3 for nehalem/westmere. 4 for newer high end, or 2 for low-end.

If it has FB-DIMM, bury it or give it away. nobody wants core2 / fb-dimm servers.

RDIMM ECC 8gb is cheaper than udimm or regular non-ecc. Love filling up my $99 ebay special (hp dl320 g6) with 72gb of ram and letting the little quad core peg out with dozens of vm's with 8 x samsung 830 behind an M5014 w/fastpath.

Pretty much anything is fine and you can mix 1.35 and 1.5 it will just run at 1.5 - I recommend just filling it up 12 or 18 (6 or 9 for 1 socket) with the same stuff since its so damn cheap.