4 ms·

Empirically that's true, though. Consumers don't seem to care if their machine glitches a few times a year due to memory, especially when their software crashes

by tlb 4y ago

Empirically that's true, though. Consumers don't seem to care if their machine glitches a few times a year due to memory, especially when their software crashes more often.

bayindirh 4y ago
Unless it corrupts the file you're working on. For me, regardless of the knowledge level of the user, their time and files are priceless. As a result, the device they use should be reliable. Of course, a faultless system is unimaginable, but I don't think that multi-year uptime our servers afford should be reserved to these higher end systems. Even Windows is stable enough to be run for years without major problems, excluding the update & reboot cycles. Hence, I think that every user deserves a system which at least has ECC memory. If we give consumers Machine Check, SMART, thermal monitoring/throttling, Persistent storage (HDD/SSD) error correction and other goodies, we can give them ECC. It should be a non-issue. Having more ECC RAM around will bring the prices down, too. Gamers will say that ECC will add latency. They can disable it, or maybe industry will evolve to provide non-ECC systems at a premium for that 2% speed advantage. I'll vote for an enable/disable switch for ECC, though.
- my123 4y ago
  Intel and other players offer in-line ECC which interleaves the ECC data with regular data, as such working on regular DRAM configs. However: in-band ECC is only enabled for Alder Lake on embedded and chromeOS systems. Not available in the SKUs for regular Windows laptop/desktop use.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    I know it's possible to obtain ECC by sacrificing your RAM capacity. Tesla cards also does this in previous generations. Can I use it with my desktop/laptop? No. So, we're at the same place still. Possibility doesn't matter when the consumer can't reach it.
    - my123 4y ago
      It is enabled on Alder Lake chromebooks. But locked out of Windows laptops by intel.
- smolder 4y ago
  I think the hypothetical gamers from your post would be wrong. AFAIK ECC should, at most, add an insignificant amount of latency into the memory controller. It doesn't add any to the actual memory transactions because the extra bits move in parallel. Registered memory will add latency, but that's a different technology that just tends to be paired with ECC.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    You may be right. I did no latency comparisons for these systems. As long as the ECC is handled in the memory controller and not offloaded to the CPU, it will be completely transparent to everything on the platform sans the machine check subsystem, which will log and report these errors in the first place.

by tlb 4y ago

Empirically that's true, though. Consumers don't seem to care if their machine glitches a few times a year due to memory, especially when their software crashes more often.

bayindirh 4y ago

Unless it corrupts the file you're working on. For me, regardless of the knowledge level of the user, their time and files are priceless. As a result, the device they use should be reliable. Of course, a faultless system is unimaginable, but I don't think that multi-year uptime our servers afford should be reserved to these higher end systems. Even Windows is stable enough to be run for years without major problems, excluding the update & reboot cycles. Hence, I think that every user deserves a system which at least has ECC memory. If we give consumers Machine Check, SMART, thermal monitoring/throttling, Persistent storage (HDD/SSD) error correction and other goodies, we can give them ECC. It should be a non-issue. Having more ECC RAM around will bring the prices down, too. Gamers will say that ECC will add latency. They can disable it, or maybe industry will evolve to provide non-ECC systems at a premium for that 2% speed advantage. I'll vote for an enable/disable switch for ECC, though.

my123 4y ago
Intel and other players offer in-line ECC which interleaves the ECC data with regular data, as such working on regular DRAM configs. However: in-band ECC is only enabled for Alder Lake on embedded and chromeOS systems. Not available in the SKUs for regular Windows laptop/desktop use.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  I know it's possible to obtain ECC by sacrificing your RAM capacity. Tesla cards also does this in previous generations. Can I use it with my desktop/laptop? No. So, we're at the same place still. Possibility doesn't matter when the consumer can't reach it.
  - my123 4y ago
    It is enabled on Alder Lake chromebooks. But locked out of Windows laptops by intel.
smolder 4y ago
I think the hypothetical gamers from your post would be wrong. AFAIK ECC should, at most, add an insignificant amount of latency into the memory controller. It doesn't add any to the actual memory transactions because the extra bits move in parallel. Registered memory will add latency, but that's a different technology that just tends to be paired with ECC.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  You may be right. I did no latency comparisons for these systems. As long as the ECC is handled in the memory controller and not offloaded to the CPU, it will be completely transparent to everything on the platform sans the machine check subsystem, which will log and report these errors in the first place.