SURPRISE SURPRISE...Kaby Lake Pentiums Support ECC

[DrKK]

Esteemed Community:

I just spoke with the illustrious @Allan Jude for a few hours, and we got to talking about his new X11-based system. In which he put a Kaby Lake Pentium initially. I said: "Ho ho! Allan, Kaby Lake Pentiums (pentia?) don't support ECC". (side note: also thought this applied to i3's, but now I'm so confused because of this surprise that I don't remember what I remember) And he says: "Yes they do". And I say: "Allan, I've never been more sure of something in my life, I am positive that the ark.intel.com website lists the Kaby Lake Pentiums as not supporting ECC, and this was a big deal for us in FreeNAS." And he says: "I'm looking at the ark right now, and the G4600 says it supports ECC."

So indeed, Santa Clara, we have a problem. A little bit of research in the internet archive shows that INDEED sometime earlier this year, the ark.intel.com website began suddenly showing Kaby Lake Pentiums as supporting ECC!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though they said they did NOT previously.

Check it out yourself.

So anyone considering an X11-based or other 1151-based build with C23x chipsets, Intel has REVERSED itself, and now states on the ark page that the Kaby Lake CPUs of the Pentium class *DO* support ECC. Allan himself is/was running one on an X11SSZ. As far as I can surmise then, *ALL* of the 1151-socketed: Pentiums (and probably Celerons, but I don't know why you'd buy the bottom binned part for $5 less), *ALL* of the i3's [EDIT!!! I think this is wrong, the i3's don't appear to support ECC on the Kaby Lake, but they do on the Skylake---do your research], and all of the Xeons (of course), support ECC. As usual, the i5 and i7's do NOT. Also, further info: the 1151-chips *all* seem to support AES-NI (this was not the case on the 1150, e.g., the G32xx family supported ECC but not AES-NI). As well, the Kaby Lake Pentiums seem to support hyperthreading as well. Clearly on a per dollar basis, I am going to recommend the Kaby Lake Pentiums for home FreeNAS users making a new X11-based system.

This seeming reversal should not be that surprising, since the decision to remove ECC support from the Pentiums seemed odd in the first place, and since Intel has a long and distinguished history of putting up the feces of the bull on their ark page (remember last time, it went in reverse, an 1155 chip that was listed as supporting ECC turned out did *NOT*, which was a worse mistake).

Anyway, just an FYI. Kaby Lake lower-priced Pentiums *DO* support ECC, and work well for FreeNAS in an X11-based system.

If anyone has further information, please add it to this post.

 

[DrKK]

Wish I would have known this before I bought an i3-6100 for my new box.

 

[Stux]

Pentium with AES-NI, ECC and HT.

Cool. What's the i3 got then? Turboboost?

 

[DrKK]

Pentium with AES-NI, ECC and HT.

Cool. What's the i3 got then? Turboboost?

https://ark.intel.com/compare/97455,97143

Difference seems marginal. Just TSX, far as I can tell? And "Optane", whatever that is.


Difference in price is not marginal.

 

[DrKK]

Very little difference, really.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4560-vs-Intel-Core-i3-7100/3892vs3891

 

[Stux]

https://ark.intel.com/compare/97455,97143

Difference seems marginal. Just TSX, far as I can tell? And "Optane", whatever that is.


Difference in price is not marginal.

TSX is of no use to FreeNAS/FreeBSD at the moment as far as I know. And anyway it's a lock contention avoidance technique which is only a problem on super busy multithreaded systems.

Optane support is just more of Intel's software raid jazz, but focusing on their super expensive fancy new ssd.

Again, pointless. You'd use optane for SLOG anyway, and you wouldn't need the chipset feature for that.

 

[Stux]

10% faster, double the price. Also AVX2.0 could be useful for a transcoding workflow.

Also, that link says no ECC for i3 ;)

Seems like the Kaby advise should be go low or go Xeon.

2/4 c/t = pentium
4/4 = 1220
4/8 = 1230

 

[Jailer]

I thought this was the case all along. The i3's have never shown ECC support on ARK and the Pentiums have. I've been recommending the G4650 as the budget CPU go to for a bit now. Hard to beat the offering and performance for the price.

 

[enemy85]

which "low price" and "low frills" mobo would you recommend for a home bck system?

 

[iammykyl]

• G4650 $72.99 Newegg, > https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117743
• If you already own/running a Kaby Lake Pentium, does that mean you would need a firmware update to enable ECC support?

 

[danb35]

since Intel has a long and distinguished history of putting up the feces of the bull on their ark page (remember last time, it went in reverse, an 1155 chip that was listed as supporting ECC turned out did *NOT*, which was a worse mistake).

So why do we believe they're right now? I recall having a similar discussion with you after the 1155 incident, and you then took the position that Intel would be extra-super-careful to get ARK right after they'd been caught putting bogus info up there. Clearly that hasn't happened. So why trust the current statement any more than the prior one? They obviously can't both be right, but what basis other than "we want it to be true" do we have to believe that the current ARK page is correct, and the G4650 does support ECC?

 

[Stux]

What does dmidecode say on @Allan Jude's system?

 

[DrKK]

• G4650 $72.99 Newegg, > https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117743
• If you already own/running a Kaby Lake Pentium, does that mean you would need a firmware update to enable ECC support?

I don't believe so, my ASSUMPTION is that Kaby Lake Pentiums have always supported ECC, and the ARK was simply wrong.

 

[DrKK]

Also, that link says no ECC for i3 ;)

Thank you @Stux. I have edited the original accordingly. It's all very confusing suddenly. :)

 

[DrKK]

So why do we believe they're right now? I recall having a similar discussion with you after the 1155 incident, and you then took the position that Intel would be extra-super-careful to get ARK right after they'd been caught putting bogus info up there. Clearly that hasn't happened. So why trust the current statement any more than the prior one?

That's fair.

I was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I no longer am.

 

[Ericloewe]

I really hope that AMD + Supermicro undercut an Intel platform while still providing proper, accurate specs. Intel is clearly way too complacent in the low-end ECC market and I hate being limited to a single supplier.

I might even take one for the team and build an AMD server when the real server parts are released, assuming Supermicro has a good product and it seems to be usable with FreeBSD. No Intel NICs, no deal.

As for immediate, practical concerns, the hardware guide basically parrots what ark says until there's proof that ark is wrong. Unfortunately, that seems less unlikely than would be ideal.

 

[DrKK]

I really hope that AMD + Supermicro undercut an Intel platform while still providing proper, accurate specs.

As bad as Intel is as providing accurate specs, AMD tends to provide no specs at all really, nothing like ark.intel.com. Somehow, I'd rather have a mostly right ark.intel.com than nothing.

 

[Ericloewe]

As bad as Intel is as providing accurate specs, AMD tends to provide no specs at all really, nothing like ark.intel.com. Somehow, I'd rather have a mostly right ark.intel.com than nothing.

Yeah, that's true and very unfortunate.

 

[DrKK]

which "low price" and "low frills" mobo would you recommend for a home bck system?

I mean, we always recommend server grade boards. Server grade boards are never low price.

The cheapest one all of us would be comfortable with is the Supermicro X11SSL-F-O. SHould be about...$165 in the US.?? Something like that. But if you're spending $165, you ought to spend $20-$40 more and get the X11SSM which has the C236 (vs C232) platform, and 8 SATA ports vs. 6.

 

[Jailer]

No Intel NICs, no deal.

Well hopefully they follow the recent trend that most of the mid and higher end AMD desktop boards are going and include Intel NIC's instead of Realcrap.