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Yes, this is the correct explanation. Intel basically forbids ECC on consumer HW.

They use safety and correctness for market segmentation. Kinda evil

Not kinda, def evil.

AMD Ryzen APUs don't support ECC unless they're the OEM-only PRO variant.

(Edit: These are way more attractive for home server use because they consume a lot less power than the Ryzen CPUs when idle)

All mobile Ryzen 6000 and Ryzen 7000 APUs (Zen 3 or Zen 4) support ECC, unlike in the earlier generations, where ECC was restricted to PRO variants. Unfortunately, none of the small computers that use them supports ECC on the MB.

It is expected that AMD will launch a desktop Zen 4 APU in the near future. If that happens, it remains to be seen whether ECC will remain enabled in it, like in the current laptop packages, but there seems to be no reason to disable it.

I can no longer edit the previous message, but I must mention that, as pointed by another poster, some time during the last couple of months AMD has changed the specifications of all their mobile Ryzen CPUs.

While during at least one year and a half all the laptop CPU specifications for Ryzen 6000 and Ryzen 7000 specifications have included a clear statement that ECC is supported, in the very recent past this statement has been removed from all AMD mobile CPU (non-PRO) specifications, for unknown reasons.

I was looking for this before I posted.

If anyone is looking for one of these standalone, outside of a full build, I bought a Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G about a year or 2 ago from AliExpress. It's been running a homeserver 24x7 since then and I never had any issues with it. YMMV of course.

IIRC AMD doesn't validate the ECC functionality on their ryzen chips? So you could theoretically end up with a defective ECC circuitry if unlucky. I think that was the case for the first generations, it may also have changed or I may be misremembering.

> IIRC AMD doesn't validate the ECC functionality on their ryzen chips? So you could theoretically end up with a defective ECC circuitry if unlucky.

This is not the case.

Ryzen, Threadripper, and EPYC use a unified memory controller that has fully validated/qualified/supported ECC capability. The only difference between the memory controllers in these CPUs is the number of them (Threadripper and EPYC will have multiple memory controller to support the extra memory channels).

When AMD claims that ECC on Ryzen isn't validated, they're talking about the platform as a whole, not the CPU specifically. ECC support on consumer CPUs depends on the motherboard supporting it. Unlike on Threadripper and EPYC (and also unlike Intel's approach), ECC is not a guaranteed feature of the Ryzen platform, so people who want that functionality need to explicitly looks for motherboards that have it (in the same way that you'd need to explicitly verify PCIe bifurcation support).

However, if the motherboard supports it, ECC on Ryzen is a fully supported, validated, you-can-RMA-if-it-doesn't-work feature.

That was in the past (true for Zen 1 and Zen 2 Ryzen). It is no longer true (after Intel enabled ECC in some desktop SKUs, starting with Alder Lake, AMD plussed by validating ECC in all desktop and mobile Ryzens).

Now all Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs, both desktop and laptop, have explicit ECC support, which means that ECC must be validated by AMD in all of them.

If any current AMD CPU happened to have defective ECC, that would be a completely defective CPU, which must be replaced by the vendor.

Despite the fact that all laptop Ryzen 6000 and Ryzen 7000 CPUs support ECC, I have not seen yet any AMD laptop or SFF computer with ECC support. On the other hand it is much easier to find AM5 MBs with ECC support than Intel W680 MBs.

The AMD website says the non-PRO 7x40 laptop Ryzens have no ECC support[1], and the Framework folks have said that AMD told them there’s no ECC on non-PRO 7x40 laptop Ryzens[2]. If plugged in, ECC modules will work, but without the error-correction functions.

(Edited to reflect the current state of the website, as it used to say ECC support was present[3].)

[1] e.g. https://www.amd.com/en/product/13186

[2] https://community.frame.work/t/responded-amd-batch-1-guild/2...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20230513075641/https://www.amd.c... (here “FP7r2” is the version for use with interchangeable DDR5 modules rather than with soldered LPDDR5)

This is very weird.

I have saved the page from your link on the 17th of July. In the saved page it is written:

"ECC Support: Yes (FP7r2 only; Requires platform support)"

The same was written at all AMD Rembrandt and Phoenix models, and it has been written in all such mobile CPU specifications at least since the beginning of 2022, so at least during a year and a half, if not more.

The ECC support was available only with DDR5 SODIMM memory, not with LPDDR5 memory, and only in the FP7r2 package, and neither in the FP7 nor in the FP8 packages.

Perhaps AMD has discontinued the FP7r2 package, but this is not mentioned in the specifications. Either that, or they have decided right now that they may charge more for PRO models, or save on testing on non-PRO models.

Either way, it seems a stupid move for AMD to degrade right now their mobile CPU specifications, when Intel will launch Meteor Lake, which is likely to be better than AMD Phoenix. AMD mobile Zen 5 will be better than Meteor Lake, but until its launch it remains about a half of year, supposing that it will not be delayed.

> lack of flexibility compared to AMD's platform

You mean flexibility to claim ECC support but not doing any validation to make sure it actually works? Does any AMD motherboard manufacturer actualy states that "ECC is supported and has been validated"? I think the muddy waters that AMD has created would warrant such an explicit statement.

> You mean flexibility to claim ECC support but not doing any validation to make sure it actually works?

The actual ECC functionality is part of the memory controller, which is entirely AMD's domain. The ECC functionality of the memory controller is fully validated.

Whether or not ECC support is present on the rest of the platform is the responsibility of the system builder. However, if the platform isn't fully ECC-capable (e.g., you're using non-ECC DIMMs, the motherboard doesn't have the necessary electrical traces, ECC support is disabled in the UEFI, etc.), this will result in the memory controller disabling ECC support, which is visible to the operating system and is something that you -- the end user -- can verify.

> Does any AMD motherboard manufacturer actualy states that "ECC is supported and has been validated"?

Yes. ECC support will be listed in the motherboard's spec sheet and manual. There also motherboards marketed for professional use where ECC support is explicitly advertised in the vendor's marketing.

> I think the muddy waters that AMD has created would warrant such an explicit statement.

AMD's official statement regarding ECC support on Ryzen is that it's supported if the motherboard also supports it. I'm not sure how they can be any clearer without making ECC a mandatory feature of the platform.