Tuesday, January 5th 2021
Linus Torvalds Calls Out Intel for ECC Memory Market Stagnation
Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel and version-control system called git, has posted another one of his famous rants, addressing his views about the lack of ECC memory in consumer devices. Mr. Torvalds has posted his views on the Linux kernel mailing list, where he usually comments about the development of the kernel. The ECC or Error Correcting Code memory is a special kind of DRAM that fixes the problems that occur inside the memory itself, where a bit can get corrupted and change the data stored, thus offering false results. ECC aims to fix those mistakes by implementing a system that fixes these small errors and avoids bigger problems. According to Mr. Torvalds, it is a technology that we need to be implemented everywhere, not just server space like Intel imagines.
He continues more about it stating the following:
Source:
Phoronix
Linus TorvaldsIntel has been instrumental in killing the whole ECC industry with it's horribly bad market segmentation... Intel has been detrimental to the whole industry and to users because of their bad and misguided policies wrt ECC. Seriously...The arguments against ECC were always complete and utter garbage... Now even the memory manufacturers are starting do do ECC internally because they finally owned up to the fact that they absolutely have to. And the memory manufacturers claim it's because of economics and lower power. And they are lying bastards - let me once again point to row-hammer about how those problems have existed for several generations already, but these f***** happily sold broken hardware to consumers and claimed it was an "attack", when it always was "we're cutting corners".
The "modern DRAM is so reliable that it doesn't need ECC" was always a bedtime story for children that had been dropped on their heads a bit too many times. Yes, I'm pissed off about it. You can find me complaining about this literally for decades now. I don't want to say "I was right". I want this fixed, and I want ECC. And AMD did it. Intel didn't.
54 Comments on Linus Torvalds Calls Out Intel for ECC Memory Market Stagnation
Why is telnet protocol still a thing if you can use ssh...
In a star trek like world, where technological evolution is paramount, the stupidity of intel, they would implode into oblivion and cease to exist.
I dont see an Entity like Intel making cpus for spaceships, but rather an Entity like AMD. And thats saying a lot.
Therefore I congratulate AMD for being exactly the opposite. They have always done their very best. I dont believe they ever gimped performance just to make more money. In fact they displayed the exact opposite behavior (holding as much as it is possible to a new cpu socket for instance.) (which is essentially what intel always has done, and offer inferior shiet for huge amounts of money just because its intel), When they could, they brought stellar improvements withs ZEN 3. Now intel essentially faqed in the ass while caught with pants down, finally decided its time to bring cpus to market with "double digit IPC procentual improvements". Its not like they couldnt do it before, they just didnt want to. So because of them, technology evolution suffered.
Same story with ECC here.
That is why i own a first gen 32 core epic and a zen 3 5950x. Seeing a 16core cpu having the same multicore performance of a 32 core cpu, while having close to double the single core performance - only 2 generations away, is a testament to the dedication and commitment to progress AMD shows.
We, the plebs, need to fine INTEL, by not ever buying their stupid CPUs. They deserve to go out of business, if you ask me. And they deserve to go down into history, as an example of how stuff was stupidly on purpose gimped down for the sake of money, which is another stupidity created by man to enslave fellow man. Our childrens children will have a hard time believing the horror stories that are reality today.
AMD is technology for the future as it was meant to be, freeing mankind,
Intel is technology for the dark ages, meant to enslave mankind.
Btw, AMD does not officially support ECC on desktop either. What they do better is that they are not preventing its use.
I think listing it as supported means it's supported.
Support already assumes things are working.
It could be be the other way around where it's working but not supported (like PCIe 4.0 on B450 boards).
ECC on the memory bus, however, is NOT mandatory even in DDR5, so system without it will not be able to detect errors that occur when the data is moving.
Maybe, Memory makers are afraid that releasing such RAM will make them compete against their own ECC server RAM's as ECC RAM's are usually expensive and more profitable for them, making consumer ECC RAM will compete with their own server ECC RAM as consumer ECC RAM could match the server ECC RAM in clocks/voltages for much lower cost.
Main problem is that ECC overclocking is almost impossible and this is a serious problem because using most of currently 'home' modules with frequencies more than some (set by CPU manufacturer) MHz is overclocking.
In todays DRAMs there is fight between maximum performance and maximum stability, first higher means second lower and vice-versa.
As for ECC, well, it will be more important due to increased density. Until now, I wouldn't say it's that essential for consumers, very few of them do things requiring absolute stability on their home devices. Personally I'm fine with a game or a browser crashing once in a while due to memory errors as a cost of a few percent more performance and a few dollars less spent on memory. For important work you use big boy hardware.
And this goes to the ECC part of the situation as well...
I guess you see that too, its not that i a "AMD fanboy", but its that im an "anti money" funboy, and everything done to gimp technology for the sake of money sickens me. If it werent for money, we would have been to the edges of the universe and back, literally, by now. Where we are is, allegedly, not even beyond the earths own satelite. (if you ignore those that say we are allready on mars)...
This is my RANT. Instead of having prosperity for everyone, we are all slaves to the fkn system ! No wonder the existance of extraterestrial societies is kept secret. If humanity were to observe how these societies are constructed and being ran, wed cringe ourselves to death !
Also - AMD produced Athlon X2/X3 and Phenom II processors with disabled cores, fanboys did their work enabling the cores "look, everyone can do it", and many bought those CPUs expecting to pay for an X2 or X3 and receive an X4. I tested 3 of those CPUs, none worked for me, because those cpus were not from the first batch.
After that there were the "8 core" AMD FX CPUs, which were falsely advertised 4 cores with SMT - www.amdcpusettlement.com/
Please stop with "AMD is the good guy" and "Intel is the spawn o Satan", as TheUn4seen said they're both corporations that want to make money. being a fanboy is simply moronic.
All other people 99.99999% don't want computers that f**k up their life's and may want to invest few extra buck to have a stable computer that don't waste the little time you have on this earth with blue screens, CTD and DirectX errors.
It is stupidity not to want to make computers better and more stable.
Also for AMD not beeing the good guy and pushing new tech, where would we be today if Ryzen with shitloads of cores never was introduced. We would still be sitting with Intel quad cores dreaming of a many core future.
Intel is so stupid that they do not recognize that even without competition innovation is a must to get people to want to buy new hardware. Intel instead strangled innovation for years when they had no competition from AMD and almost destroyed their own PC market. AMD actually saved Intel from their own stupidity.
High EQ:And AMD did it. Intel didn't.:(
But who doesn't like f*****?bravo linus:roll:
Competition is important, no one is disputing that. AMD are not the "good guys", it's just a corporation which wants your money, and they will do exactly the same shit Intel does as soon as they can. Hell, they already did bend the truth to sell crap and lied to investors. Intel is in it for the money, AMD is in it for the money, you live for the money, as I do. Thinking that one corporation is better than the other is just delusional.
Minimum JEDEC speed budget ECC would be perfect for the "computer illiterate", helping to avoid the rare freak accident that causes some elderly person to have a memory-based BSOD or suddenly shut down their streaming app because of a memory error (still won't save them from other errors, but it reduces the chances of memory-based ones from ever happening, short of RAM failure). Memory makers can also market "Gaming ECC", which feature high stable clocks and ECC, capitalizing on some irrational and uninformed gamer fears about the risks of their games potentially locking up and needing to shut down or restart, especially in more competitive games (but also for already buggy games, like Bethesda games). Charge a bit more for them compared to non-ECC "Gamer RAM", as it's all factory OC'd from the start (guaranteed ECC up to that timing and speed). Then you'd just have regular ECC memory, taken from the server market, but pushed to prosumers who use HEDT for work, and where every bit of time saved is money made.
But it's not like every chip will be able to pass the strict ECC validation that Xeons go through, so it's not like Intel and AMD can realistically offer it on every consumer CPU.To my knowledge, only Threadripper supports ECC (of AMD's "consumer" CPUs). Some motherboards can enable it on AM4 CPUs, but it's pointless when the CPUs are not validated for ECC. I don't know if Threadripper's ECC support and validation is on par with Xeon or not, because ECC is not just about having it, it matters what kind of parity, checks and corrections the hardware is capable of.
ECC memory goes up to 3200 MHz, which is the fastest DDR4 JEDEC supports and is the fastest speed supported by any current CPU. Going beyond that would be pointless (for now), since you will have to sacrifice system stability and long-term reliability. Xeons are designed to handle load 24/7 for years, not just five minute bursts of benchmarking like most enthusiasts do, if you give the controller more voltage it will become unreliable much quicker if you run it with sustained loads.There is actually a fairly low chance of a single error to cause applications or the OS to crash, most memory errors will only cause data corruption. This is why ECC is often a "requirement" for file servers, it's more about data integrity than uptime.