Xeon and ECC RAM on Intel consumer motherboards?

[alizee]

I'm having trouble finding a straight answer to this:
If I put a Xeon E3 in a Z68, Z77, Z87, or Z97, will it utilize ECC RAM?

What about a Xeon E5 in X79 or X99?

It seems likely because the memory controller is in the CPU, and it seems equally unlikely because Intel would want to differentiate chipsets.

I have a Xeon E3 (Ivy Bridge) in a server motherboard with 32GB ECC RAM. I'd like more PCIe slots and want to switch out that motherboard with my desktop's board (Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3), or I will buy a new workstation/server board. I'd also like to minimize the time that the system is down, so I want to figure out if I need to buy a new board before I tear my server apart.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Both the chipset and the CPU have to support ECC, so unfortunately, no.

Even among the server/workstation chipsets, there are some that support either/or, and some that only work with ECC.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Both the chipset and the CPU have to support ECC, so unfortunately, no.

This exactly. The consumer oriented (H/B/Q/Z) chipsets do not support ECC RAM.

If you have a single Xeon E3, the only chipsets that can support ECC RAM are the C216 and the C202/204/206, and even then, as dave_the_nerd points out, you should double check with the manufacturer. Especially in the case of the 202/204/206 which are Sandy Bridge chipsets.

Newegg has pretty decent power search for this, any of these should work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...67&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=30