unbuffered ecc. why?

[darckhart]

was looking around but couldn't find a good answer.

what on earth is the point of unbuffered ecc?

please leave all the money-related replies out. i'm just curious about the performance/reliability aspects.

thanks for clearing it up!

 

[fffblackmage]

http://www.tech-faq.com/ecc-memory.html
http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.aspx?qid=3692
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random-access_memory#Errors_and_error_correction

Remember, Google is your best friend.

edit: Actually, to be more specific, were you asking about buffered vs unbufferred? In any case, just Google it.

 

[alaricljs]

Short answers: ecc vs. non-ecc is about the reliability of your RAM and whether or not you mind cosmic rays (and other more likely things like normal component degradation) having a chance of crashing a program or your system.

buffered vs non-buffered is a question of how many sticks you want to be able to stick on a motherboard. The buffering lowers the electrical load on the memory controller making it possible to put many more sticks on the same bus. Desktop board - no buffering needed, server/workstation boards - buffering needed for more than X sticks. X to be determined by the manuf. of said board/chipset.

 

[darckhart]

buffering lowers the electrical load on the memory controller making it possible to put many more sticks on the same bus.

ah yes, i was wondering why unbuffered-supporting boards seemed to limit out at 24gb. thanks!

 

[Soundmanred]

Money?