Back in the day (~1992), we sold Intel 486 desktops with parity memory. When PC's went to a 64-bit data path (not to be confused with a 64-bit OS), we sold Intel desktops with ECC memory. (I remember seeing an IBM white paper that claimed that ECC memory is more reliable than non-ECC memory by a factor of ~2000.) Then Intel pulled the memory controller inside the CPU, and didn't bother to implement ECC on their line of desktop processors, apparently having decided that nobody on a workstation gives a damn about data integrity. Thanks Intel!.
Back in the day (~1992), we sold Intel 486 desktops with parity memory. When PC's went to a 64-bit data path (not to be confused with a 64-bit OS), we sold Intel desktops with ECC memory. (I remember seeing an IBM white paper that claimed that ECC memory is more reliable than non-ECC memory by a factor of ~2000.) Then Intel pulled the memory controller inside the CPU, and didn't bother to implement ECC on their line of desktop processors, apparently having decided that nobody on a workstation gives a damn about data integrity. Thanks Intel!.