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5 Things to Know About Using Desktop DDR3 With a Xeon E3-1230 v3

  1. The Xeon E3-1230 v3 works with standard desktop DDR3 RAM. It uses the same LGA1150 socket as Haswell desktop chips and runs on consumer motherboards like H81, B85, H87, and Z87.

  2. You only need ECC RAM if you use a server or workstation board. Consumer motherboards with H81, B85, H87, or Z87 chipsets do not support ECC memory.

  3. For a budget build, grab a cheap used H81 board. It will work fine with plain old desktop RAM, no special memory required.

  4. Buy the cheapest 16GB (2x8) DDR3 1600 kit you can find. Stick with non-ECC, unbuffered, unregistered RAM. The Xeon does not care about brand or speed beyond that.

  5. Save your money for an SSD instead. Future You will appreciate the leftover cash for faster storage over expensive RAM.

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