ECC is optional on AMD's Pro GPUs, if you turn it off you get about 7% more VRAM - 30700MiB to 32768MiB on a Pro W6800. On Windows, this is as easy as flipping a switch in the Radeon control panel.
On Linux, this is possible but not documented.
Turning it off
Boot once with a patched kernel which returns false from amdgpu_atomfirmware_mem_ecc_supported
TODO: You might just need to reboot twice with the kernel param below and be able to skip this patch, but I don't think so. Should confirm this!
amdgpu-no-ecc.patch
diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_atomfirmware.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_atomfirmware.c
index a06e72f474f..61314fcb161 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_atomfirmware.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu_atomfirmware.c
@@ -615,14 +615,15 @@
/*
* Return true if vbios enabled ecc by default, if umc info table is available
* or false if ecc is not enabled or umc info table is not available
*/
bool amdgpu_atomfirmware_mem_ecc_supported(struct amdgpu_device *adev)
{
+ return false;
struct amdgpu_mode_info *mode_info = &adev->mode_info;
int index;
u16 data_offset, size;
union umc_info *umc_info;
u8 frev, crev;
bool ecc_default_enabled = false;
u8 umc_config;
u32 umc_config1;
You should see "GECC will be disabled in next boot cycle if set amdgpu_ras_enable and/or amdgpu_ras_mask to 0x0" in dmesg.
Do what it says, and boot again with amdgpu.ras_enable=0 added as a kernel parameter.
Your GPU should now boot with ECC disabled and more VRAM available!
$ dmesg | grep -i ecc
amdgpu 0000:06:00.0: amdgpu: MEM ECC is not presented.
amdgpu 0000:06:00.0: amdgpu: SRAM ECC is not presented.
amdgpu 0000:06:00.0: amdgpu: GECC is disabled
Turning it back on
Revert the patch, remove the param, and reboot.
You may have to reboot twice.