I've just been speaking to Asus online help chat and they confirmed my board, the Sabertooth X79, with the latest 4801 BIOS accepts ECC and buffered RAM as well as Non-ECC and unbuffered RAM. They confirmed it now takes 16GB per slot too up to a maximum of 128GB.

However, my Core i7 4960X CPU is limited to 64GB I think, but not sure (any advice?)? Therefore, with ECC DDR3 RAM much cheaper than Non-ECC I have been considering this. Anybody got any experience of using them on a DAW machine and what pros or cons may be?

 

ECC/registered RAM will be more expensive, perhaps more reliable, but perhaps slightly slower.

https://www.google.com/search?q=buffered+ram

For consumer use, use normal RAM. In reality, you may only get a few more crashes/errors per year, which is tolerable.

NB: haven't used either

 

ECC/buffered RAM is actualy much cheaper for DDR3 in UK. I can get 32GB ECC/buffered RAM for approx £60, whereas non-ECC/unbuffered (i.e. normal consumer RAM) will cost me approximately £150-175+ for 32GB.

 

Your call if it's cheaper