Reasons For Not Using ECC
In most computers used for serious scientific or financial computing and as servers, ECC is the rule rather than the exception, as can be seen by examining manufacturers' specifications.
However most motherboards intended for desktop (rather than server) machines cannot use ECC, and those that can are shipped with it disabled (but easily enabled, usually by a change to BIOS setup), to allow use of cheaper non-ECC memory.
ECC memory is higher cost, as each bank is 9 memory chips compared to 8 for non-ECC memory, and the lack of demand for ECC RAM allows for less economy-of-scale advantage.. In some cases the price ratio reduces to 9/8, as an example, on 2008/11/30, on Crucial.com, an ECC CL=5 unbuffered 2GB DDR2-667 DIMM cost $30 while the corresponding non-ECC part cost $28, a difference of 1/15, however some ECC modules cost twice as much as their non-ECC equivalents ). ECC-supporting motherboards, chipsets, and processors may also be more expensive, since they are priced for non-consumer markets. Furthermore, ECC RAM has a performance impact of around 2–3 percent, depending on application, due to the additional time needed for ECC memory controllers to perform error checking.
Read more about this topic: ECC Memory
Famous quotes containing the words reasons for and/or reasons:
“Write to the point: say immediately what you want to say most, even if it doesn’t “come first.” There are three reasons for doing this. First, you will then have said it, even if nothing else gets said. Second, your readers will then have read it, even if they read no more. Third, having said it, you are likely to have to say something more, because you will have to explain and justify what you chose to say.”
—Bill Stott (b. 1940)
“In looking back over the college careers of those who for various reasons have been prominent in undergraduate life ... one cannot help noticing that these men have nearly always shown from the start an interest in the lives of their fellow students. A large acquaintance means that many persons are dependent on a man and conversely that he himself is dependent on many. Success necessarily means larger responsibilities, and responsibilities mean many friends.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)