Is ECC RAM slower than its non-ECC equivalent??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I want to run 2x2gb PC5300 ram modules on my 975X motherboard. Since it supports ECC memory and I can 2x2gb for around the same price as the non-ECC type which will be better?? Does ECC memory incur much of a performance hit and is it more stable?? I do not intend to overclock the memory.

[directhex]

no performance hit compared to non-ecc of the same spec - but generally the specs are worse

i run ECC in my 975-based home server

[Jay]

ECC is slighly slower (not that you would ever notice this though!) and it will not overclock as well as none ECC. It is more stable for servers that run for week and months at a time but for a normal home PC I wouldn't bother.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I just realised that I had an extra 1gb stick of PC6400 RAM lying about!! Will running 3x1gb memory in single channel mode make much difference in reality to 2x1gb in dual channel mode??

[Agent]

I just realised that I had an extra 1gb stick of PC6400 RAM lying about!! Will running 3x1gb memory in single channel mode make much difference in reality to 2x1gb in dual channel mode??

Dual Chan makes very little difference. If you are contemplating more RAM because you need it, the benefits of it will far outweigh what dual channel will offer

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Would it slow down any games like Crysis or am I being silly??

[Agent]

Loosing dual chan?
Benchmark and compare, thats the only real way to tell

If its bigger than 5% though, I would be *very* surprised.
Crysis eats ram, so the gain off the extra gig should outweigh it

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Arghhhh!! 3X1gb in my computer does not seem to be stable!! Orthos is not stable overnight!! On top of that my computer seems to have crashed and Vista seems to have been buggered!! The 975X in my Shuttle seems to be neutered at running anything other than 2 RAM sticks faster than 533mhz!! Looks like 2x2gb will have to be only way to get more than 2gb!

[Agent]

Did you knock up the Northbridge voltage and/or RAM voltage?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The RAM voltage is on "auto". Timings are manual though. I am running 2x PQI PC5300 1gb DIMMS and 1x Geil PC6400 1gb value DIMM.

[Das Capitolin]

Generally speaking, ECC is slower than non-ECC because it has to pass through one additional cycle to check the algorithm.