Ram in HP z600 - ECC unbuffered vs Registered

[HardwareExtreme]

I went and looked on the HP documentation for the z600. This is the page: Here It says registered or unbuffered ECC ram. The question I have is if they are mixable or if when it says registered it also means ECC. Right now I believe that I have 12 gb (3x4gb) of unbuffered ECC ram, but I don't know for sure. Anyone know anything about this machine? I'm looking to put a second CPU in (and since both CPUs require their ram slots populated also put in RAM) The reason I wonder this is because Registered ECC is WAY cheaper than unbuffered ECC. Any help is appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Lutfij]

It means you can have either registered ECC Ram or unbuffered ECC rams but not both in the same system. It's bad practice to mix and match ram which will bring up instability issues and require valuable resources to solve them.

FYI, at the bottom of the brochure, page 1,

• Unbuffered and Registered DIMMs cannot be mixed in a system

When going for a ram upgrade make sure you go for identical rams or if possible swap out the entire lineup of rams for a kit(or multiple kits). Prior to your upgrade, please be sure to update your BIOS.

If you yourself are unsure of what rams you have, download CPU-Z and pass on screenshots of the memory tab's and drop downs.

 

[Stewart_2]

There are two revisions of the Z600 identified by the motherboard and bios date stamp. The early version is known as a B version, date stamp is 2009 and the boards end in either 01 or 02. The later board is a C2 and has a date stamp of 2010 and the boards end in 03. The difference is significant since the early board WILL NOT accept 56xx chips or the much cheaper and easier to source 10600R memory. Sellers are not always sure either since C2 boards can be sold with 55xx chips yet still be the later boards but you will NEVER find a early board with 56xx chips in them. The early boards take 10600E memory, this is far more expensive and you will be restricted to a max of 4Gb per stick, I have never seen 8Gb in 1000E but it is common in 10600R versions. This is important if lost of memory is needed since the Z600 only has 3 slots per processor. Common to all boards is SATA2 and USB2 so if you want to use SSD seriously consider a SATA3 controller card. As for speed a dual 5620 with 10600R is FASTER than a AMD 8350 which is impressive. Be careful with GPU as it is known the Z600 does not like power demanding graphics cards like the HD7970.. sadly Finally consider storage options as the Z600 case is limited to 2 drives as standard whilst its bigger brother the Z800 has 4, but again the motherboard issue is common to both which is not always clear from the sellers information since a lot more Z800 are advertised with 55xx chips than Z600s. BY one with a 56xx chip and your guaranteed to get a later motherboard.

 

[HardwareExtreme]

On this motherboard, which is a B revision board, I did some testing. First of all, I was able to get one of my X5650s working in it, but it refused to boot as soon as I put the second one in. As for ram, it can use normal consumer ram, and can mix with the ECC ram I have without problems, and without stability issues, although I'm not entirely sure how. I have a GTX 750Ti card as my main GPU, since it is one of the few cards that can run with a six pin connector, (I ended up needing an extender cable!)
Right now I am trying to fit the motherboard in a case I have, and to do this I have rewired the memory power connector, and I still need to make something up for the main power connector. The CPU power is standard 8 pin connector. I am using a 600w PSU for this machine. I am doing this because I am planning on getting a C2 board that I found on Amazon for this machine, and use that in my Z600 case.