Is this ram ECC?

krooton · 24 Aug 2007 at 09:01

I have a 512MB stick with the following info on it:

Sticker reading:
512MB PC-3200 DDR
(38) 400MHZ 070731
Warrant Void If Removed

Chips reading:
Samsung 530
K4H560838E-TCCC
ZKA154BJ Korea

I wanted to stick it in with my 1GB of OCZ Non-ECC stuff, but some google hits say this is ECC. Any way to be sure?

Yellowbeard · 24 Aug 2007 at 17:47

I'd suggest Google and/or looking at the Samsung site.

Street · 24 Aug 2007 at 18:39

Does it have extra chips in the middle of the RAM? Every ECC stick I have seen has a couple of extra little chips in the middle.. The Error Checking Chip!

Take a photo if you aren't sure what I mean and I'll tell you.

krooton · 24 Aug 2007 at 20:02

Street said:
Does it have extra chips in the middle of the RAM? Every ECC stick I have seen has a couple of extra little chips in the middle.. The Error Checking Chip!

Take a photo if you aren't sure what I mean and I'll tell you.

Cheers dude

http://www.kr00t0n.com/RAM001.jpg
http://www.kr00t0n.com/RAM002.jpg

Street · 25 Aug 2007 at 11:32

Doesn't look like ECC to me..

Minstadave · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:05

No its not ECC. Its normal samsung PC3200 TCCC based chips.

MumboJumbo · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:23

Is ECC better then NON-ECC? Coz all the expensive stuff seems to be NOn-ECC? yet surely error checking is better?

Minstadave · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:28

8igdave said:
Is ECC better then NON-ECC? Coz all the expensive stuff seems to be NOn-ECC? yet surely error checking is better?

ECC is only supported by server motherboards, not sure why it'd be cheaper than non-ECC, probably due to lack of demand.

BigglesPiP · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:42

See where it says DDR?

DDR-SDRAM is non EEC.

Minstadave · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:54

BigglesPiP said:
See where it says DDR?

DDR-SDRAM is non EEC.

You can get ECC DDR-SDRAM though.

BigglesPiP · 25 Aug 2007 at 13:02

Minstadave said:
You can get ECC DDR-SDRAM though.

But it's uber rare.

Street · 25 Aug 2007 at 14:41

Its not that rare.. Infact I've built a fair few servers with it!

tom_e · 25 Aug 2007 at 15:24

BigglesPiP said:
But it's uber rare.

It may be rare to you but its not rare to anyone who deals with server hardware

MumboJumbo · 25 Aug 2007 at 15:25

Why do you use ECC for servers and not gameing rigs then?

Tute · 25 Aug 2007 at 15:38

8igdave said:
Why do you use ECC for servers and not gameing rigs then?

It's not suitable for gaming really as the ECC adds extra RAM latency, which hurts gaming performance.

There was that AMD incident though involving the Socket 940 FX series chips, which used ECC DDR as they were on server motherboards. Back then the performance drop was negated by the fact that everything else AMD was on single channel (Socket 940 FX-chips were dual-chanel).

Once Socket 939 launched the 940 FX chips were discontinued and sunk into the wilderness.

krooton · 28 Aug 2007 at 07:50

Cheers guys, gonna stick it in my machine now!

krooton · 28 Aug 2007 at 11:39

Seems to do fine running at 2.5-3-3-8 as my old ram does, shaved 1 second off my 512 and 1MB SuperPI scores too

Minstadave · 28 Aug 2007 at 12:14

Glad its working for you

Those timings are about right for TCCC based chips.