[Animats]

The CPU chip can do it. Some motherboards bring out the pins to do it, but they're often called "workstation" boards and cost 2x the price of a standard desktop motherboard. ECC memory itself is overpriced. $60 for 16 GB DDR4 without ECC, $130 for 16 GB DDR4 with ECC.

This is the legacy of Intel's policies.

[buran77]

Because if you give consumers a choice between having ECC or LEDs on otherwise identical boards with identical price, most will go for the LEDs. In reality the price isn't even the same because ECC realistically adds to the BOM (board, modules) more than LEDs do. So the price goes up with seemingly no benefit for the user.

As such features that are unattractive to the regular consumer go into workstation/enterprise offerings where the buyer understands what they're buying and why.

[Dylan16807]

> Because if you give consumers a choice between having ECC or LEDs on otherwise identical boards with identical price, most will go for the LEDs.

Citation needed.

I would bet that your typical ram-purchasing consumer is not seeing or even considering the existence of the ECC model.

> ECC realistically adds to the BOM (board, modules) more than LEDs do. So the price goes up with seemingly no benefit for the user.

LEDs are a great opportunity to increase profit margin, so I'm not sure about your price conclusions.

[buran77]

That's pretty much exactly my conclusion

> Citation needed.

It really isn't. It was a hypothetical choice between 2 models, with ECC or LEDs, at the same price. Hypothetical because most boards don't offer the ECC support at all, and certainly not at the same price.

> LEDs are a great opportunity to increase profit margin, so I'm not sure about your price conclusions

You confused manufacturing costs, price of the product, and profit margins. LEDs cost far less to integrate than ECC but command a higher price premium (thus better profit margins) from the regular consumer. Again supporting my statement that even if presented with 2 absolutely identical parts save for ECC vs. LEDs the vast majority of consumers will go for LEDs because they don't care or know about ECC.

[Dylan16807]

> It really isn't. It was a hypothetical choice between 2 models, with ECC or LEDs, at the same price. Hypothetical because most boards don't offer the ECC support at all, and certainly not at the same price.

You're making a claim about what people would choose. If you have no related data, and logic could support multiple outcomes, then a claim like that is basically useless.

> You confused manufacturing costs, price of the product, and profit margins.

I'm not sure why you think this.

> Again supporting my statement that even if presented with 2 absolutely identical parts save for ECC vs. LEDs the vast majority of consumers will go for LEDs because they don't care or know about ECC.

Sure, if you don't tell them that it's ECC they won't pick the ECC part.

If you actually do a fair test, and put them side by side while explaining that one protects them from memory errors and the other looks cooler, you can't assume they'll all pick the LED.

When people never even think of ECC, that is not evidence that they wouldn't care or know about it in a head-to-head competition.

[buran77]

> You're making a claim

My claims are common sense and supported by the real life: regular people don't know what ECC is, and those who do find the problem's impact is too minor to get palpable benefits from fixing it. Why are you being pedantic if you aren't actually going to bring arguments at the same level you expect from me?

> If you actually do a fair test, and put them side by side while explaining that one protects them from memory errors and the other looks cooler, you can't assume they'll all pick the LED.

Isn't this exactly the kind of claim you yourself characterize one paragraph above as "useless" because "you have no related data, and logic could support multiple outcomes"? Sure, if people were more tech-educated then my assumption might be wrong. But people aren't more educated so...

The benefits of LEDs are hard to miss (light) all the time. The benefits of ECC are hard to observe even in that fraction of a percent of the time. Human cellular "bitflips" happen every hour but they don't visibly affect you so you also consider it's not an issue that demands more attention, like constant solar protection. People aren't keen on paying to solve problems they never suffered from, or even noticed, especially when you tell them they happen so often still with no obvious impact. Unless they have no choice, like OEMs selling ECC RAM only devices.

Sell me ECC memory when my (actual real life) 10 year old desktop or 5 year old phone never glitched. Sell me ECC RAM when my Matlab calculations come back different every time. See the difference?

> When people never even think of ECC, that is not evidence that they wouldn't care or know about it in a head-to-head competition.

Well then, I guess none of us has any evidence except today people buy LEDs not ECC RAM. Educate people or wait until manufacturing process and design are so susceptible to bitflips that people notice and it will be a different conversation.

[Dylan16807]

> My claims are common sense and supported by the real life: regular people don't know what ECC is, and those who do find the problem's impact is too minor to get palpable benefits from fixing it. Why are you being pedantic if you aren't actually going to bring arguments at the same level you expect from me?

Regular people aren't given the choice! The things you're quoting about the real world to support your argument are incompatible with a scenario where someone is actually looking at ECC and LED next to each other. And I'm not being "pedantic" to say that, it's a really core point.

> Isn't this exactly the kind of claim you yourself characterize one paragraph above as "useless" because "you have no related data, and logic could support multiple outcomes"?

A claim of a specific outcome is useless. "you can't assume" is another way of phrasing the lack of knowledge of specific outcomes.

> Sure, if people were more tech-educated then my assumption might be wrong. But people aren't more educated so...

It's the kind of thing that can go on a product page. But first someone has to actually make a consumer-focused sales page for ECC memory, and the ECC has to be plug-and-play without strong compatibility worries.

And just like when LEDs spread over everything, it's something that you can teach people about and create demand for with a bit of advertising.

> Sell me ECC memory when my (actual real life) 10 year old desktop or 5 year old phone never glitched. Sell me ECC RAM when my Matlab calculations come back different every time. See the difference?

That's a clear picture of one person. But "never glitched" is a very dubious claim, and you can't blindly extrapolate that to how everyone would act.