Atom Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Hi All, I am thinking about building an Intel based 128GB DDR4 machine. I don't want to use Xeons because I probably will try to overclock. From my research it looks like the motherboard socket type needs to be LGA 2011-3. Does this mean my only real i7 chip option is the Broadwell series? Is anyone running a 128GB machine and care to share their specs? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derjcmp Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Hi atom! I'm running a 64gb ddr4 with an overclocked i7 i7 6950x + gttx 1070. Its crazy fast on all kind of sims, my xeon workstation at work beats it on the render side tho. Allan mckay posted a podcast on that a week ago, you should definitely listen to it! Will answer most of your questions! Good luck! http://www.allanmckay.com/80/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atom Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 What motherboard did you choose for your i7 system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I'm running 128GB of ECC memory on a gaming board with a Xeon at home. I don't know that I'd try to use 128GB of memory that wasn't ECC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atom Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 Thanks for the tip, I had not thought about that. ECC is for Xeon, right? The RAM is a significant investment. I have seen boards that support both ECC and Non-ECC also i7 and Xeon. Is that the reason? Xeons use ECC and i7 use Non-ECC. I assume you can't mix and match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Xeon processors support ECC memory and non-ECC memory. The overwhelming majority of Xeon machines are equipped with ECC memory because the cost difference between ECC and non-ECC is minimal compared to the investment of the rest of the machine and the benefits are pretty big in the long run. Core i7 processors support only non-ECC memory. There are a few Celeron and other random processors that support ECC memory but for the most part it's Xeon. A machine can work "fine" with 128GB of non-ECC memory but it's one less thing to worry about and go wrong. This is an interesting read. http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/10/you-really-do-need-ecc-memory/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derjcmp Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 @AtomI can't remember the model for it.. But it is a standard gaming board. Most of the boards support up to 64gb of ram nowadays, going for 128gb board requires more investiment as far as I know, and with that its prob worth going for a xeon with ECC memory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 (edited) Almost all of the socket 2011-3 motherboards support 128GB of memory (even if the specs still say 64GB from pre-16GB module days). What to look for is the number of memory slots. Most of the socket 2011-3 boards have eight memory slots which is enough for 128GB of memory with 16GB modules. Some of them like the microATX boards have fewer memory slots like four or two. Edited June 7, 2017 by lukeiamyourfather 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmay Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 I'm running an Asus X99-A board with 5960X OC to 4GHz, with 96GB of RAM, 4x8 and 4x16. It's been super-stable so far; I've not had issues even though I've had several multiday renders over the past three months. I haven't done a whole lot of RAM-filling work, but so far so good. Lousy software remains my primary source of crashes I made sure to pick the first 32GB RAM from the motherboard manufacturer's compatibility list - in this case, Corsair Vengeance 2400 cas 14. When I picked up the 64GB later, it wasn't on that list yet, but I chose the 16GB version Corsair memory with the exact same timing specs. I also stick to stock timings for stability; 3D rendering work is overwhelmingly CPU limited, AFAIK. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmay Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 On 6/5/2017 at 9:25 AM, lukeiamyourfather said: Xeon processors support ECC memory and non-ECC memory. The overwhelming majority of Xeon machines are equipped with ECC memory because the cost difference between ECC and non-ECC is minimal compared to the investment of the rest of the machine and the benefits are pretty big in the long run. Core i7 processors support only non-ECC memory. There are a few Celeron and other random processors that support ECC memory but for the most part it's Xeon. A machine can work "fine" with 128GB of non-ECC memory but it's one less thing to worry about and go wrong. This is an interesting read. http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/10/you-really-do-need-ecc-memory/ The one conclusion that jumps out at me is Conclusion 3 - RAM can age on you and get less reliable. I had a set of DDR3 RAM check out fine with memtest when I upgraded a system in 2012, which went bad about a year later. I didn't isolate it until I noticed the occasional corrupt PNG file in renders and about monthly bluescreens, and after eliminating the HD as the cause, ran MEMTEST again and found a bad DIMM. Might be a good idea to do that again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 I've had similar issues where memory modules have gone bad over time. The difference is with ECC you just query the operating system about how many errors have been corrected on each DIMM (or how many uncorrectable errors have been detected) and replace the ones with orders of magnitude more errors. Meanwhile nothing you're working on gets corrupted or crashes because of memory corruption. That's worth the extra money to me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Peter Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 On 8.6.2017 at 4:00 AM, jimmay said: I'm running an Asus X99-A board with 5960X OC to 4GHz, with 96GB of RAM, 4x8 and 4x16. It's been super-stable so far; I've not had issues even though I've had several multiday renders over the past three months. I haven't done a whole lot of RAM-filling work, but so far so good. Lousy software remains my primary source of crashes I made sure to pick the first 32GB RAM from the motherboard manufacturer's compatibility list - in this case, Corsair Vengeance 2400 cas 14. When I picked up the 64GB later, it wasn't on that list yet, but I chose the 16GB version Corsair memory with the exact same timing specs. I also stick to stock timings for stability; 3D rendering work is overwhelmingly CPU limited, AFAIK. Nice, so no x99-A "II" just the plain old one? I Got that too with an 6950X @ 4GHZ and 64 GB. Thought this was the limit. 4x16 GB sticks. So is it possible to just put another 4 stcks into that case? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmay Posted July 3, 2017 Share Posted July 3, 2017 (edited) On 6/20/2017 at 0:20 PM, Heraklit said: Nice, so no x99-A "II" just the plain old one? I Got that too with an 6950X @ 4GHZ and 64 GB. Thought this was the limit. 4x16 GB sticks. So is it possible to just put another 4 stcks into that case? Just the plain one, built right at the end of 2014. Mine has 8 slots, so you should be able to toss in another 4 sticks. Max 128GB. I have 96GB b/c it was cheaper than tossing and replacing the original 32GB too. IF I ever feel the need for that last 32GB I can price it into the gig that needs it. Be sure to update the BIOS though. I had to do that before the upgrade. Edited July 3, 2017 by jimmay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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