Is there an advantage to having ECC registered ram?

[Helltrain]

I am upgrading my PC to be better equipped for video editing and encoding. For reference I am running a MSI KT3 Ultra-2R and I just installed an athlon XP 3000+ last night. I was looking at upgrading my Ram and looking for good deals, when I noticed that you can get ECC ram cheaper on ebay than non-ECC. Is there an advantage to having ECC/ registered ram when it comes to video editing and conversion? Right now I have 3 X 256 non-ECC and I am not sure it is worth even ugrading.

[adam]

For most users ECC ram is actually worse. It basically has additional checking to detect and fix memory errors which makes it run slower. I think its really only advisable to use for things like servers where memory is constantly used heavily and integrity is crucial.

For video editing/processing? Definitely use non-ECC.

[bgclarke]

You should also check your motherboard manual/specs to see if it can even use ECC RAM.

I have an Asus A7V400-MX board, and it specifically calls for non-ECC RAM.

[adam]

Yeah some boards require ECC memory, though you can usually still turn off ECC in the bios...which again is recommended for typical home computer use.

But I just checked and his mobo supports both.

But...I seriously doubt you are going to see much performance gain installing additional memory. Unless you are doing alot of multitasking, I say you've got enough already.