ECC only helps with a very specific issue with cosmic radiation.

>>54587047
>early 2000's: 1 GB RAM
That didn't really become a thing until about 2006, back in 2001 256mb was still pretty common and could run XP with no service pack nicely.

>>54587263
This
ECC is always used in servers because flipped bits can fuck up shit

>>54587047
>correctness of your spreadsheets, calculations, etc (not just games)
>ecc ram
that's not how it works
>memory capacity for a home computer was small, so i guess memory errors weren't an issue
>how big does RAM in your PC have to get to justify using ECC RAM?
shit nigger, you're dumb

is there a graph that shows how memory errors scale with size? i assume it'll be quadratic (because area density increases)?

>>54587397

> that's not how it works

that is how it works you retard. if you have critical data loaded in memory, and 1 bit in non ECC memory flips, your data can become corrupted.

now sit down before i slap your boyfriend's dick out of your mouth.

>>54587047
think of ECC RAM as a TCP data transmission, while downloading the newest 6gb OS image or similar size database file for your non-existent six figure job, you want the most complete, error free, uncorrupted final product possible. it might take a few min longer, but your file will be perfect.

Now your regular consumer/gaymer class RAM, is UDP, which would be like VOIP or Video calling. theres gonna be some dropped frames, some audio or visual distortion, and you might get disconnected and need to redial. but the important part is that youre IMMEDIATELY send/receiving data that doesnt really need to be exactly perfect

>>54587047
RAM size has nothing to do with susceptibility to memory errors. A bit flip is a bit flip no matter how many bits there are to flip. Hell, you can argue that a smaller memory size means you should worry even more about a relatively more significant portion of it being incorrect.

You only need ECC if your running your system for long periods of time and need more verifiable redundancy for your RAM. e.g. when running a server.

The average consumer pc or workstation is far more likely to crash or fuck up from buggy software than it is from extremely unlikely bitfips, so there isn't really any good reason for a consumer with 1tb of ram to worry so much about ECC.

idk, OP run memtest86 and find out

A bit flip occurs once every few months.

Why not create some kind of shielding against rays instead of expensive hardware that require months to make with extremely precise means of production ?

>>54588727

nigga it's almost impossible to completely shield cosmic radiation.

>>54587047
Personally I'd buy ECC RAM before I would buy an i7. ECC > hyperthreading.

>>54588814
>not living in a cave dug out of a mountain of lead

>>54588978
Thats why the US has always failed to hack the terrorists.

>>54588978
>not living in a cave dug out of a mountain of lead

Uh, naturally occurring lead includes radioactive isotopes.

research.google.com/pubs/archive/35162.pdf
"an average DIMM experiences nearly 4000 correctable errors per year."

Regular DIMMs have the same errors as ECC DIMMS... you just have no idea they happened and the erros aren't corected. The problem isn't when errors crash your machine--- it's when they happen in memory handling the filesystem, and the erroneous data gets flushed out to disk, where the error becomes permanent and even saved out to backups...