chris wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
What if I wrap the ram in a sheet of lead? ;-)
(hopefully the lead itself won't be radioactive)
I've been looking at the same thing recently.
I found these 4 AM3 motherboard with "optional" ECC memory support. I don't
know whether this means ECC works, or ECC memory can be used but ECC will not. Do you?
That's a good question. The ASUS specs definitely say unbuffered ECC
memory is compatible, but until you mentioned it I never thought about
whether the ECC functionality would actually be used.
Asus M4N78 SE, Nvidia nForce 720D Chipset, 4xsata
Asus M4N78-VM, Nvidia GeForce 8200 Chipset, 6xsata, onboard video
Asus M4N82 Deluxe, NVIDIA nForce 980a Chipset, 6xsata
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P, AMD 770 Chipset, 6xsata
I hadn't located the Gigabyte board yet I'll have to look at that.
The ASUS boards with the AMD chipsets (the models that start with M4A -
like the M4A79T) are all true AM3 boards - they take DDR3 memory. All
the nVidia chipset boards (even the 980a one) are AM2+/AM3 boards, and
(as far as I know) only take DDR2 memory, but that may not matter to you
since this will only be a server for you. The chipset isn't supposed to
dictate the memory type that up to the CPU, but the MB does need to
support it in other ways.
DDR3 doesn't appear (in any reviews I've seen) to give much benefits
with the current processors anyway. What I find more discouraging (since
I'm trying to build a desktop/workstation) is that when you go to look
for RAM the only ECC memory available (doesn't matter if it's DDR2 or 3)
is rated much slower than what is available for non-ECC. For example you
can find DD2 at 1066mhz, or even 1200mhz, but the fasted ECC DDR2 you
can get is 800mhz. - It's cheap though, unless you want 4GB DIMMs then
it's outrageous!
The 2nd one looks the most promising, and GeForce 8200 seems somewhat supported by solaris except for sound(don't care) and network (can add another card.
I don't see the the 1st or the 2nd one at usa.asus.com. The 3rd is the
one I've been considering hard lately. In my searching the other brands
don't seem to support ECC memeory at all.
Another thing to remember is the expansion slots. You mentioned putting
in a SATA controller for more drives, You'll want to make sure the board
has a slot that can handle the card you want. If you're not using
graphics then any board with a single PCI-E x16 slot should handle
anything. But if you do put in a graphics board you'll want to look at
what other slots are available. Not many consumer boards have PCI-X
slots, and only some have PCI-E x4 slots. PCI-E x1 slots are getting
scarce too. Most of the PCI-E SATA controlers I've seen want a slot at
least x4, and many are x8.
-Kye
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