While I agree that it'd be nice if Intel didn't use ECC as a server/desktop delimiter, AMD's stance (at least for AM3 and AM4 parts) appears to have been "the CPUs support it, but we haven't run any validation tests on it; if the motherboard manufacturers want to validate it and turn it on, great".[1][2] Which is not quite the same as it being enabled on all parts.

[1] - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-review...

[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_crea...

That absolutely does mean it's enabled on all parts. They also don't validate the chips against FreeBSD - does that mean you can't run FreeBSD on their chips? Or do you think it would be ridiculous to expect them to test scenario's outside of the market they're targeting?

Do you have any idea the cost of running validation tests? I'm not the least bit concerned that they haven't "validated" the ECC functionality. It's enabled, they know it works, it's the same ECC they use on server class chips, and if someone found a bug I have no doubt they'd issue microcode to fix it.

I should have perhaps included the article which tried _enabling and using_ ECC on a Ryzen CPU+MB. [1]

Page 5 is perhaps the most important one, where it observes that neither Windows nor Linux appear to react by halting to a UE, and Windows can't quite figure out that ECC is enabled on the platform and parse the notifications it gets as such.

So, sure, I should concede that it is "enabled" on all parts, I was wrong. But that doesn't mean it should be trusted on any of them.

[1] - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-review...

I guess we can agree to disagree. AMD implementing it, motherboard mfgs implementing it, but Windows not having an updated driver to handle it in all situations isn't on AMD. And it doesn't mean it's not there - it means that Windows is lagging slightly behind on a brand new platform. Something that's been fairly common with AMD for decades now. There's a reason the acronym Wintel became a thing.

Precisely because it is a market segmentation tactic, they do allow ECC on lower end chips which they do not see stealing marketshare from Xeon.

My home media center PC / NAS runs an i3-4370 CPU with ECC RAM

The same is true for AMD's new Ryzen CPUs, ECC support is enabled. You still need a suitable motherboard though.

On linux you can force enable ECC on an unsupported motherboard with

> ecc_enable_override=1

Most motherboards have the extra memory traces in place even if they don't enable ECC.

"cost them basically nothing"

"using it as a differentiator between server and desktop"

so it would cost them SOMETHING...

Something related to artificial milking, as opposed to tangible production costs.

Sure, but as a consumer it is kind of nice that my chips are probably a little less expensive because server companies are paying more for their chips.

Who said we aren't milked as consumers too?

Those are two segmented markets. If Intel's revenue is above their R&D and other expenses, then whatever profit they make milking enterprises/server companies is independent of what they make milking us.

Why is this any different from tesla selling you software locked batteries?

Well, it could be, who said it isn't? Though i'm not familiar with the Tesla case.

But selling "locked batteries" in a product where the batteries are 80% of the innovation/feature set, and where after-market batteries could cause all kinds of issues, is one thing.

Whereas selling memory at triple or more the price just because you switched on some feature (ECC) that would have costed nothing to switch on for everybody is another thing.

In Tesla, they literally sell everyone the 75 KW battery. Some people pay 80k for the car, some people pay 75k for the car, but the battery is software limited to 60KW. You can later pay 6k to software unlock the extra part of the battery sitting in your car.

Product market segmentation is a very reasonable thing to do. Why do people make it out like a bad thing? If you ever run a business, you will want to find a way to get big enterprise to pay X, and small business to pay X/4. ECC is something businesses care way more about than gamers, so why not charge more for it?

>Product market segmentation is a very reasonable thing to do. Why do people make it out like a bad thing?

Because most of us would rather pay a price that mostly reflects costs + some reasonable profit, not some artificially created segment, not fuel extravagant profits, not pay for future research, not pay for the company to have cash reserves, etc etc.

As a consumer, your only choice is binary. Vote yes and buy, vote no and don't buy.

If it offends you that your device has some enterprise feature that you don't really need turned off unless you pay $x... sorry? But you don't really have a right to the feature for some margin % that you deem fair.