> It's just that (a) you often won't notice those transient errors (one pixel in your multi-megapixel photo is one bit off) and (b) a lot of your RAM is probably unused.
Also, most modern processors use ECC for their caches (even when the main memory is non-ECC) and they serve the vast majority of memory requests, so it is unlikely that intermediate values in a tight computation are affected by non-ECC RAM. That adds to the "silentness" aspect of the bit flip in consumer systems.
Also, most modern processors use ECC for their caches (even when the main memory is non-ECC) and they serve the vast majority of memory requests, so it is unlikely that intermediate values in a tight computation are affected by non-ECC RAM. That adds to the "silentness" aspect of the bit flip in consumer systems.