ECC RAM on consumer boards is mostly a waste.

No. Even if it physically fits, it won’t error-correct. Consumer chipsets (Intel B/H/Z, AMD B/A/X non-Pro) treat ECC RAM as regular RAM. The ECC functionality gets ignored.

Some AMD Ryzen CPUs can do ECC on certain boards, but it’s finicky and often requires specific BIOS settings. Intel is a hard no unless you have a Xeon or W-series chipset. You’ll likely end up with standard DDR4/5 sticks that you paid extra for, getting zero benefit.

If you need ECC, buy a platform that officially supports it. Don’t try to hack it onto a consumer board.