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Major Mac Pro 2008 RAM ECC confusion!

R

Raw-m

macrumors newbie
Original poster
After much research on the interweb I've finally realized I've lost the plot, so time to ask the experts....

I've just bought some Kingston KTA-MP800K2/4G RAM from here. The website says it's non-ECC yet the same product from here says it is ECC. This "yes it is/no it isn't" repeated throughout my searches. I bought my Mac with 4x1Gb of Apple's RAM which I'm guessing is ECC(?).

These are my questions:
1. Does anyone know what the correct ECC status is for this product (the Kingston website was no use at all!)

2. I'm reading that it is you shouldn't mix ECC types but what are the consequences of doing so?

3. Is there any software tool to run that can check if my installed RAM is ECC or not, or check everything is happy and compatible?

4. Am I being pointlessly paranoid!?

I do a lot of motion graphics and 3d work so it's important to me everything is tuned up and working as smoothly as possible.

Many thanks for your time......
 
After much research on the interweb I've finally realized I've lost the plot, so time to ask the experts....

I've just bought some Kingston KTA-MP800K2/4G RAM from here. The website says it's non-ECC yet the same product from here says it is ECC. This "yes it is/no it isn't" repeated throughout my searches. I bought my Mac with 4x1Gb of Apple's RAM which I'm guessing is ECC(?).

These are my questions:
1. Does anyone know what the correct ECC status is for this product (the Kingston website was no use at all!)

2. I'm reading that it is you shouldn't mix ECC types but what are the consequences of doing so?

3. Is there any software tool to run that can check if my installed RAM is ECC or not, or check everything is happy and compatible?

4. Am I being pointlessly paranoid!?

I do a lot of motion graphics and 3d work so it's important to me everything is tuned up and working as smoothly as possible.

Many thanks for your time......
Click to expand...

1. I'd assume it is ECC, because if it's Apple specification, then it has to be ECC. I'd trust Newegg's specifications over that other site. The only thing is that I hope that site has the EXACT same product that Newegg has, because they have a different picture...That has standard heatsinks made for PC servers, not Apple spec'ed heatsinks; this is very important as Apple has made it strict that these heatsinks are made to cool efficiently. If you have the standard server/pc grade heatsinks, then they won't cool as efficiently, causing your Mac Pro to speed its fans up in order to keep them cool.

2. As long as they're ECC, it doesn't matter. There's a chip on the memory itself that controls the error correction, so nothing outside of the memory is doing the error correction.

3. Obviously, you're computer will do the check before you can boot it up properly. If it boots up, then you should be fine. Apple system profiler will properly detect it when you run the software.

4. Probably. Don't think about it too much. If it's the same model number as another site, then it should be the same product. If you get it and it's not the right product, then you should call or email the company that sold it to you and tell them that they're not labeling their information correctly, and that you want a full refund or something of that nature (unless you'd prefer for them to ship you the proper product...it's up to you 😛)

On another note, Macs aren't as picky about memory as it was back in the PowerPC days. You can pretty much purchase any kind of PC memory, and it'll work.
 
Thank you all, it's really put my mind at ease (especially the "All FB-DIMMs are ECC" quote!).

Happy Mac-in' 😀
 
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