Difrences in PC numbers (PC3200, PC2100)

What do the difrent numbers mean? is higher better? Also im upgrading an old system. the specs say it can handle PC2100/PC1600 ECC/non-ECC DDR SDRAM. whats ECC and non ECC?
lots of questions thanks to anyone who reads and replies/thinks about replying!

EDIT:Is the 2100 also ECC compatible;
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=P4B266&langs=09

What do the difrent numbers mean? is higher better? Also im upgrading an old system. the specs say it can handle PC2100/PC1600 ECC/non-ECC DDR SDRAM. whats ECC and non ECC?
lots of questions thanks to anyone who reads and replies/thinks about replying!

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1) The PCxxxx numbers define the maximum bandwidth that the RAM can cope with. Higher is better, although for faster RAM you need a board and CPU that support it.

PC2100 has a maximum bandwidth of 2100MB/s, runs at 266MHz
PC2700 has a maximum bandwidth of 2700MB/s, runs at 333MHz
PC3200 has a maximum bandwidth of 3200MB/s, runs at 400MHz

2) ECC means Error Checking and Correction. The RAM sticks have 9 or 18 chips rather than 8 or 16 on them. The extra chip is used as a parity bit, which lets the RAM detect errors and fix them.

Welcome to the forums

Thanks a bunch, but im still wondering if my board supports PC2100 ECC (link on first post)? I'm really liking these forums by the way, any time I post, someone responds very fast, very, very active. I'm gonna stick around for a long while

gizmofo said:

Thanks a bunch, but im still wondering if my board supports PC2100 ECC (link on first post)? I'm really liking these forums by the way, any time I post, someone responds very fast, very, very active. I'm gonna stick around for a long while

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yes your board supports pc2100 ECC and non-ECC, you could put anything higher then pc2100 in it too, it would just run the ram at pc2100 speeds.

Last thing i think, whats unbuffered memory?

gizmofo said:

Last thing i think, whats unbuffered memory?

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unbuffered memory doesn't support ECC...pretty much what home pc's use, registered memory is better for servers i think because theres less chances of memory errors.

EDIT:not to sure tho maybe sumone else can clear that up...thats just what google told me but if unbuffered memory doesn't support ECC and your mobo only supports unbuffered memory but can support both ECC and non ECC then that makes no sense!

This explains registered/unbuffered better than I could
http://www.2cpu.com/articles/44_1.html

David said:

This explains registered/unbuffered better than I could
http://www.2cpu.com/articles/44_1.html

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2cpu.com said:

One common misconception is that if a stick of memory is capable of ECC it must also be registered (this is certainly a common combination). This is incorrect as you can find unbuffered, ECC modules if you look hard enough.

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ah that clears it up, nice find David.

thnx!!