Ryzen Motherboard ECC Memory Summary

Update (2017-06-22): After looking at the poor state of ECC support for a while, I ended up picking up an MSI B350 TOMAHAWK board, which does not support ECC. A variety of factors contributed to this, not the least of which that it had PCI ports legacy hardware support. The end result? I’m no longer actively researching ECC support on Ryzen boards, so this list is probably going to steadily go out of date. Please feel free to contact me if you have updates!


This is just a list tracking what is known about which AM4 motherboards currently on the market support running with ECC memory.

If you see (or have tested) anything not on my list, please drop a comment and let me know about it so I can update.

Overview by Brand

ASRock

So far, all ASRock B350 and X370 boards have the following text in the spec sheets:

– AMD Ryzen series CPUs support DDR4 3200+(OC)/2933(OC)/2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory

Additionally, there’s been confirmation from ASRock that the X370 boards have working ECC. An ASRock support rep. says that all AM4 boards support ECC (But a commenter notes that the relevant options are missing in some bios versions). So it’ll probably work! When I find confirmation for specific boards, I’ll add it to my detailed list.

ASUS

Many of the ASUS X370 and B350 boards are currently listed with support for ECC memory (e.g. from the PRIME B350-PLUS):

4 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4 3200(O.C.)/2933(O.C.)/2666/2400/2133 MHz ECC and non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory

but the “ECC” part of that has gone and come again over different revisions of the spec page. Some reports say that you may need an updated bios on some boards.

Some ASUS boards have been confirmed to work, both by AMD techs directly and by user testing. Details in the table below where known.

Biostar

On product pages for all B350 and X370 boards, they list

Support Non-ECC & ECC Un-buffered DIMM Memory modules

I’m still looking for confirmation on whether ECC memory is functional, but it’s a good start.

Gigabyte

On their spec comparison page, Gigabyte says that for their X370 boards:

Support for ECC Un-buffered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules

but on the B350 boards:

Support for ECC Un-buffered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)

which is pretty disappointing. It’s not clear exactly what “operate in non-ECC mode” even means (no EDAC?). I haven’t seen any tests yet to confirm either way.

MSI

There’s no mention of ECC in the specs list for any of the MSI boards. Status TBD, but I’m not optimistic.

Table of Infos

To get the “Works” status, I look for a review or test where someone has induced memory errors e.g. using Rowhammer, and has seen reports of corrected memory errors in the OS logs.

BoardChipsetForm FactorECC Status
ASUS PRIME X370-PROX370ATXConfirmed, Works
ASRock X370 TaichiX370ATXMostly works (no UE halt)
Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5X370ATXProbably Works

Comments

One response to “Ryzen Motherboard ECC Memory Summary”

  1. Martin Maney

    I would bet that Gigabyte means just what it says: the ECC memory functions as non-ECC memory. They’ve used this weasel-wording for years… can’t recall anymore when this first bit me, maybe back in the P2 era? Have avoided Gigabyte boards ever since. :-(

    But this is great news – I thought AMD had pretty much said that Ryzen wouldn’t do ECC, and was depressed. Guess I stopped looking for what I thought I knew was impossible. :-/

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