ECC or NON ECC Memory??

[geobon]

Any memory experts out there? right sticking another pc together with parts i have lying around, the board is an ASUS P4C800 with 3.4ghz P4, now its complete appart from the memory but what do i get? a 1gb stick of NON ECC PC3200 CL2.5 is arond £50 give or take, anyhow i've been offered 2gb (2x 1gb sticks) of ECC PC3200u CL2 UNBUFFERED/NON REGISTERED now checking on crucial the board supports ECC UNBUFFERED now i know CL2 is better than CL2.5/3, so bear in mind i can get 2gb for less than the price of 1gb standard PC3200 memory, is there a downside to using ECC memory? is it better or worse? what would you guys suggest as my way of thinking is 2gb is better than 1?

[polarstar]

here is the asus specs for your board.
http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=12&l3=30&l4=0&model=176&modelmenu=2

or
http://uk.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=P4C800

[geobon]

Thanks for the links but i already know the board specs m8 and that it takes both ECC and non ECC, im asking if ECC is as good as or better than non ECC memory and if theres any downsides, is it stable etc, never used ECC memory so thought i'd ask before buying but the price looks well good.

[polarstar]

it's a difficult one as i have'nt used ecc memory but having a bit of a read through google it's mainly used for servers so maybe a good idea to use the non ecc memory.

no doubt one of the clever mods will know which is the best to use.

[Van Nugent]

ECC (Error-Correcting Code) RAM is intended for servers as it has extra bit for checking the integrity of the incoming and outgoing data going thru that memory stick. However, it's slower than non-ECC RAM because of the "checking" time. :)

Edit: For home use, non-ECC is more suitable and that's the reason most mobos designed for home accept only non-ECC RAM.

[geobon]

Thanks guys, Van is there a noticable difference in speed? when i say that and taking into account what polarstar said about better using non ECC memory, do you think the 1gb of non ECC will perform better than 2gb of ECC? also take into account this is unregistered/unbuffered ECC memory if that makes a difference, but at £45 for 2gb compared to £50 for 1gb the speed would have to be very noticable to sway me towards non ECC, what i've found so far from browsing the net is that ECC CL2 is only 1/10th of a second at most slower than non ECC CL2.5 and thats only on the first cycle after the first cycle its faster and is faster than CL3 on the first cycle, can anyone confirm if thats the case as i've used CL3 memory in the past and its not to noticable? sorry for going on but can anyone actualy justify me paying £50 for 1gb of ram when i can get 2gb for £45 and its a second pc so will only be used for basic stuff and photshop etc.

[geobon]

Its ok guys just bought the ECC memory, emailed crucial and they advised me unbuffered ECC is technically the same as non ECC and can run as non ECC by simply disableing it in the bios or stick another stick of non ECC ram in with them and it'll run as non ECC as it isn't actually buffered/registered, anyway thanks for the input guys.

[Van Nugent]

Depending on what we run, the difference in speed may not be noticeable if we're running office & email stuff. However, gamers will suffer the most just to give you some ideas. Data checking on ECC RAM is only important in servers where traffic is much heavier than home use.

[geobon]

Thanks van, must have posted at the same time lol! according to crucial unbuffered ECC is not the same as registered ECC and is practically the same as non ECC, according to them its not very common that’s why it can run on a good few boards as its can run in non ECC mode. Whereas registered can’t and can only be used in servers. I'll take their word for it, they usualy know what there talking about when it comes to memory. i hope!

[Van Nugent]

In the old days, registered RAM was commonly called buffered memory and unregistered memory was called unbuffered mem.