ECC vs Non ECC

[DiamondDust]

HI, I just "stumbled" across this site and love it. Anyway I am looking to buy some new ram and I have a question. The motherboard that I currently have [abit bx6r2] supports ECC ram. I am looking to upgrade my mobo and processor in a few months and the mobos that I have had my eye on do not support ECC ram. Is ECC ram backwards compatable with non-ECC mobos the same way pc133 ram is backwards compatable with pc100 ram? Will it work just not as optimal as possible? Is there a noticeable difference between ECC and non-ECC ram? Like I said I am looking to upgrade soon and I am looking to get a 1.2 gig athlon t-bird [266meg bus]. Does anyone know of a good mobo with ECC support and one that DOES'NT HAVE A **** AMR SLOT!?!?!?!?!? What is the deal with that new AMR slot? I've heard from several people that it is a complete waste of a good slot. I would appreciate eveyones opinion who reads this post.
Thanks guys
Dust

[DanU]

If you are going to get new RAM for a home/office/gaming type system, get NON-ECC RAM. It's much cheaper and plentiful. ECC is mostly used for mission critical servers where the additional cost is worth the extra bit (pun intended) of reliability.

The abit KT7 series and the equivalent Epox boards (8kta?) don't have an AMR slot. They instead opt for a single ISA slot... perfect for your old hardware isa modem.

[Fingers]

Hi DiamondDust, nice to have you here.

Unless you have a specific reason to use ECC memory, I agree with DanU.
Most motherboards today will support both ECC and non-ECC (which is generally known as "non-parity). Todays modern RAM is so reliable that ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) is not really necessary, in fact it's usually undesireable, except on servers and machines that handle extremely important data.


Maybe some of these questions in the Crucial.com FAQ (http://support.crucial.com/scripts/crucial.exe/faq) will be helpful:

What is the difference between ECC and non-parity memory? (http://support.crucial.com/scripts/crucial.exe/solution?11=000724-0004&130=000964451872&14=&2715=&15=&2716=&57=faq&58=&2900=&25=-1)

How do I know if I need parity, non-parity, or ECC memory? (http://support.crucial.com/scripts/crucial.exe/solution?11=000804-0007&130=000965423334&14=&2715=&15=&2716=&57=search&58=&2900=&25=6&3=ecc)

Can you mix and match ECC and non-ECC modules? (http://support.crucial.com/scripts/crucial.exe/solution?11=001128-0007&130=000975431213&14=&2715=&15=&2716=&57=search&58=&2900=&25=6&3=ecc)

Can I use memory with ECC on a board that does not support ECC? (http://support.crucial.com/scripts/crucial.exe/solution?11=000724-0003&130=000964451829&14=&2715=&15=&2716=&57=search&58=&2900=&25=6&3=ecc)

I hope that helps with the ECC issue, but I'll have to defer to DanU and others on the Tbird mobo and AMR issues.

[elroy]

ECC will slow your system down too.
I bought an Epox 8KTA3, lots of PCI slots and one ISA. I'm running a Duron 800@980 [133fsb]