No, because if ECC were ubiquitous it would cost hardly more. RAM chips would be like 36 or 72 bits wide instead of 32 and 64. And Apple could easily support ECC in their SoCs from the Watch up to the Mac Pro. It's an existing, proven technology with multiple benefits that should be given more importance than 4 more fps in a game. I can't believe how far Intel's "ECC is only for expensive systems" brainwashing for artificial market segmentation has diffused. I do online banking on all of my systems. I want to know when my memory is under attack. I want to know when something is about to fail, for RAM just like SSDs and HDDs have done since forever. Why is memory less important?
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MP 14,8 Mac Pro 2023 is a scam
- Thread starter Xenobius
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As cell dimensions of RAM chips shrink and the amount of memory in a machine increases the odds of a cosmic ray flipping a bit increases. This is why having ECC becomes important. There was a recent BBC show that demonstrates this problem.
Lots of people liked their trashcan Macs too.
Ok, and if we're cherry picking, and I'll keep my old 2019 Mac Pro that destroys your machine in intel virtualization and your non ability to run native intel software.
We can cherry pick all day. But reality is a mediocre i9/6900XT outperforms your machine at most things, including apple's own Metal standard, which permeates every bit of the operating system.
Um, probably 99% of the time you wont KNOW you had an error. A bit could be flipped in some non-critical data and just be saved corrupted in the system. The point of ECC memory is at least 2 fold. First it will TELL you that you had an error (usually in a system log somewhere) and as a bonus, also fix it on the fly.
If you were doing some critical work and you check the logs and you had a SPATE of errors, even ECC could be wrong in 'thinking' it fixed the error (eg if you have a double parity error that is beyond ECC). But you can check the log and say, you know, I'm going to re-run that massively important scientific computation or that hugely important machine learning model I'm working on (because millions of people will depend on it maybe for their lives).
And you are exactly WRONG about how common they are. Their occurrence is increasing. YOU are likely experiencing at least one memory error per day at current memory capacities. Here is an article on it:
Computer Device Makers Ignore Bit-Flip Errors and Data Corruption
John Kheit wants to know why all modern device makers haven't moved to ECC memory considering the problem of bit-flip errors.
www.macobserver.com
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You seem fundamentally not understand the nature of these memory errors. The RAM did not FAIL. So passing a memory test is irrelevant as a random neutrino passes through your RAM hours later flipping a bit. Yet the RAM is and continues functioning perfectly well.
ECC is needed to make sure your current memory state does not experience an error.
Um no you wont. A very large portion of the time, the memory may flip on some data that is irrelevant. If a bit flips changing a single pixel color in a buffer, the system will continue to run completely perfectly with no indication at all. You're simply wrong.
You (and the person I was replying to) and I are not referring to the same thing. I'm talking about RAM that is actually failing. That was the context in which the person I was replying was speaking about as a reason to have ECC RAM. You're talking about the standard every day sort of memory error that happens all the time on non-ECC RAM. And the person I was replying to was confusing one for the other.
And yes, I fundamentally understand the nature of what you're talking about. I'm not so far removed from how ECC memory, among other workstation-class desktop nuances work that I do not understand what ECC actually does.
Well, yes, but irrelevant data is, er, what's the word... Oh yes, irrelevant. I think I covered that:
Plenty of memory locations that aren't in the middle of an uncompressed bitmap file or sound sample do matter and if you have a significant problem with memory errors, sooner or later a pointer or a byte of code gets changed and there are consequences. Plus, this was in the context of the people saying that ECC will warn you of a failing memory chip. I guess it would - and there are more advanced forms of ECC like 'chipkill' that can cope with a failed memory chip - but that's not really the #1 reason for wanting ECC. If you have a failing chip, you'll get clues. If your data is so mission critical that you can't risk a single bit out of place then you should have data integrity checks up the wazoo, because ECC only guards against one, fairly specific, class or error.
Like many features of data-centre grade equipment, ECC is really only something that matters at scale when million-to-one-chances crop up nine times out of ten and its worth spending money on even a partial mitigation. People can cope if their personal Mac Studio suffers a glitch every six months, if you're running a data centre with hundreds of systems, that level of error could take hours out of every week.... but then, Apple hasn't even pretended to make data-centre grade equipment since about 2010 when they dropped the xServe.
I suspect that the idea that if it ain't ECC it ain't a workstation is largely thanks to Intel marketing (...it's a corollary of "if it ain't Xeon it ain't a workstation" since Intel, for a long time, studiously avoided supporting ECC on their Core i series). Because, the one thing I don't see here is people saying "I had to throw away my iMac/Studio because it was plagued with memory errors".
Possibly, but without ECC they won't know whether it's once every six months or once every six seconds.
But you are right to bring up Intel's marketing, they did a lot of damage by making ECC an upper-tier feature in conjunction with convincing people that it's not needed outside of the upper tier, because that's the only way they could charge a lot for the feature.
If you're getting a bit flip every six seconds then you'll only have to wait a few minutes before crucial bit gets flipped and something breaks. Or you'd wonder where the "snow" was coming from in your images.
You need ECC when working at a scale where "once every X hours per Y GB of RAM" adds up to a problem.
I have to take the side of the sane people. ECC memory should be standard. Especially for a $7k+ computer. After all, AMD have designed their desktop chipsets all compatible with ECC.
Is it more likely that AMD executives and engineers are dumb or is Apple cheap? IT'S a 3 trillion dollar company. They can give us ECC memory!
And frankly, for this price, I would like to see an industrial SAN added into the MacPro. Something like a NetApp box (Apple could buy them). That way we not only have ECC but our own ZFS alternative.
Is it more likely that AMD executives and engineers are dumb or is Apple cheap? IT'S a 3 trillion dollar company. They can give us ECC memory!
And frankly, for this price, I would like to see an industrial SAN added into the MacPro. Something like a NetApp box (Apple could buy them). That way we not only have ECC but our own ZFS alternative.
Yes, but you haven't asked the most important question: do video editors use it? if not, then no its useless and how dare you even ask for that functionality
Yeah, but are they pRoFeSsIoNaLs, or just some dudes editing vidyas for the YouzTubez...?!? ;^p
I’ve been following this thread closely as I am still interested in the MacPro even with its memory limitations, because of the card slots so that you could presumably get a maxed out memory and just 1TB SSD since you could load a batch of NVME on a card and get as much fast storage as you need.
That said I must say I bought a Dell 7940 with 784gb memory for a lot less, with two nVidia cards and its a machine that is infinitely upgradable even after several years so it just blows it away, and Windows 11 isn’t that bad.
I still use a couple of 5.1 MacPros which even now are still upgradable and running fine and I think they are the best models ever made.
IMO I think this is more likely the last Mac Pro, so if you want slots you need to get it. They are more likely to scrap it altogether than address its deficiencies. I don’t think they care that much about it anymore. They are a phone company now.
That said I must say I bought a Dell 7940 with 784gb memory for a lot less, with two nVidia cards and its a machine that is infinitely upgradable even after several years so it just blows it away, and Windows 11 isn’t that bad.
I still use a couple of 5.1 MacPros which even now are still upgradable and running fine and I think they are the best models ever made.
IMO I think this is more likely the last Mac Pro, so if you want slots you need to get it. They are more likely to scrap it altogether than address its deficiencies. I don’t think they care that much about it anymore. They are a phone company now.
Man, those Dell workstations seem AWESOME! I've never owned one, but I know a couple people who have similar models, and they haven't complained once about them.
You could! I still think the RAM is a HUGE limitation for some people though, especially in the computer science and media industries.
I used to use my 5,1 Mac Pro as my main machine up until around March of this year, but it just was starting to get a little too slow. Granted, I didn't have the most powerful CPU in it, but I felt like it wasn't worth the money to upgrade it further. Don't get me wrong, they're still awesome machines though, and I sort of wish I could go back to using it, but my M1 works fine for the most part.
It's pretty great. I use that OWC accelsior card to fill it up with 4x 8TB sabrents. Ours is PCIe x4 so the speeds are quite fast; faster than the x3 slots in my 7,1 with the older x3 version of the nvme. I usually use them to store training datasets. ML algorithm development and other stuff is done on a 2TB samsung EVO NVMe.
Additionally we have a "scratch" partitions on them for people to put temporary files/datasets or other random files generated by whatever software theyre writing etc.
Do you know if you can boot off that card off a partition where you’ve raid’ed 2 or more sticks together?
That must be a new prototype model. Dell has never released a 7940 so far as I can recall.