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Comment by pedrocr | Hacker News Reader

These parts could also be interesting for NAS and other home server setups if the monolithic die leads to better idle power usage and they haven't lost ECC support. Unfortunately getting verified ECC support in AM5 seems to be quite difficult. In AM4 it was easy but ECC on APUs was only enabled on the PRO parts which were only sold to OEMs.

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As someone with four Ryzen 7 PRO 5750GEs, I’ll say I’m looking forward to whenever the Ryzen 7 PRO 8750GEs exist. :)

In raw CPU performance, I found the 5750GE was 90-92% of the CPU performance of a 5700X, but capped out at a total package power of just 39W. 5750GEs made for fantastic home server CPUs, so here’s hoping there’ll be an 8750GE later this year (plus some ASRock Rack mATX motherboards with ECC support and BMCs).

I agree the OEM only was a pain. I had to get my 5750GEs through mostly disassemblers/recyclers, though some boutique shops like QuietPC buy a half tray of them at a time to sell directly to end users, so keep on the lookout!

Seems like there's no need to wait for the PRO versions as the 8700G has ECC support:

https://www.amd.com/en/product/14066

Power can probably be limited in the BIOS to whatever level you prefer.

There's also already AM5 ASRock Rack with ECC support in the specs:

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=B...

There are reasons for folks to wait for the PRO.

* First are the EPYC memory protection features. No other Ryzen SKU has them. I actually care about these protection and isolation features.

* Second are the GE variants. Think similar to Intel’s T and TE variants. These are super binned for extra low power consumption. An 8750GE will be binned to actually be at max performance at a 35W TDP. Yes, you could set a G to Eco Mode or whatever, but I’ve done those experiments with 5700Gs and 5700Xs, and the performance nor power consumption is not quite there compared to the GE versions.

* Last is AMD DASH support. Think Intel vPro IPMI without needing a dedicated BMC (just an onboard NIC that supports DASH). Non-PRO Ryzen SKUs do not support DASH.

I won’t be waiting regardless as my 5750GEs are good for many more years still, but the PRO variants genuinely have real differentiating features.

It's worth noting AMD already included minimal GPUs in the desktop line for the Zen 4 generation, including video encode/decode. These, with the exception of the 8300G model, simply have larger GPUs but smaller cache and this might not be a good trade off for a NAS. The exception is the 8300G which is a good budget option having only 4 cores and no parallel in the desktop line.

AM5 has iGPU in all parts which makes it easier to use as server indeed. But normal AM5 parts are chiplet designs so they idle at relatively high power. These are monolithic dies from the laptop line so they have that going for them. According to the AMD website ECC support is enabled in these too:

https://www.amd.com/en/product/14066

It seems AM5 motherboards are back to having ECC confirmed in the specs after AMD AGESA updates:

https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/B650M%20Pro%20RS/index.asp#Spe...

So pending some benchmarks 8700G+B650+ECC sounds like a good home server that should idle at low power.

Oh wow I thought they abandoned the monolithic APUs in newer generations as well. I guess that does help then.

What's the easiest way to cheaply get ECC on AM5 working w/ separate GPUs nowadays? I currently have an ASRock B450 AM4 motherboard + ECC memory + Ryzen 5 3600 and while I think ECC works, I'm not certain.

I with there were a "cheap ECC on <AMD newest socket>" guide where the components and settings were validated by a reputable party.

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