Ecc is still segmented on the amd apu lineup, including desktop models (and for many years these were the only models with integrated graphics!), and there literally is no way for consumers to even buy some of the parts that AMD has segmented these features to. So there is not some moral imperative that AMD has undertaken here - AMD backs my "right" to ECC right up until I want to use it on a 5700G, or buy a 5750G Pro, which they won't even sell to me as a consumer!

(just like AMD also segmented based on SMT up through at least the ryzen 4000 series despite the fans bashing intel for the same, lol)

Moreover, with amd one increasingly has to worry about the platform lock, which is an absolutely obscene e-waste stream AMD has created to reduce the secondhand sales market. This isn’t limited to server CPUs or pro CPUs, notionally it affects all CPUs that might have ever passed through an oem system, including non-pro consumer CPUs etc.

https://youtu.be/bFNJVaO9E-o?t=420

The stated reason is security/antitheft, but the platform lock doesn't lock a CPU to a motherboard, it locks it to a brand. So if someone has physical access to your server rack and wants to steal the CPU, they just have to find a lenovo-branded or hp-branded chip to swap it out with... and there are rivers of those because locked chips are essentially treated as e-waste. What it does do very successfully is throw a whole cloud of confusion and pain over the secondhand market and drive these to be scrapped etc and push sales of new devices instead.

AMD could very easily have implemented a lock/unlock system using non-volatile storage or simple e-fuse even/odd counting (limited number of locks/unlocks, granted, but it carries with the CPU not the mobo, and how many systems is the average CPU used in?). They, naturally, chose the one that is permanent but bricks the cpu for everyone else, but which also doesn't really fully prevent CPU swapping attacks either. Plenty of e-fuses to spare for detecting memory overclocking though - we all know denying warranties comes first ;)

For the type of person who gets wound up about the moral imperative of ecc, that’s not exactly what you want to see from AMD either. First 2 Rs are "reduce" and "re-use", followed by "recycle". Like how about we don't tivoize the cpu in 2018 or whatever? Secondhand sales are just as much of a moral right and AMD is really having the old college try at taking that away, and frankly a lot more impactful to the average user. I strongly wish the EU would step in and ban this practice. This is not a good/healthy path, it would actually be really bad if everyone was doing this on their products.

Also, Intel has ECC support on the upper half of their range. Yes, it requires motherboard support, but you also have to pick and choose with AMD because only a handful of motherboards actually support/validate it anyway. Plus with AMD you have the fTPM issue (and very few of the premium creator boards/etc have external TPM headers). This is the reality as a homelab owner - you have to pick your hardware very carefully regardless of brand, a random B650 board probably is not going to report errors and may not even detect them. And while it may work on any given BIOS, it may stop working at any future point, whether intentionally or not.