ECC Support Question

[dedla]

If a Mobo says it has ECC support, does that mean I HAVE to use ECC Moduals?
Case point is here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813151156

Edited: typo

 

[doolittle]

no you can use either ECC or non-ECC for that board.

 

[dedla]

Awesome. For non-serverness, and just standard gaming set up, would I have any reason to use ECC? Is it slower, does it last longer?

 

[doolittle]

ECC does a hardware checksum for error correction, so if memory errors occur it is possible to correct them and log to the firmware for possible memory replacement during a maintence window - so it is excellent for business critical servers. But I have seen ECC memory crap out and lock up just like non-ECC, but for the most part it does get corrected and logged. So you are really only decreasing the chance of a memory failure system crash...

Well let me stop ranting about this and say ECC does have a slight latency penalty, and is definitly not needed for a typical desktop / game box. The $ can be better put into quantity over error correction!

 

[dedla]

Yay! I've been infoed. I didn't get ECC for the board and got worried about it.

Thank you lots.