What is error correction?

[Trashcan]

Ive heard this term so many times when it comes to overclocking the memory, but im not sure what it means. Can someone enlighten me? 

[Flyguygamer]

It corrects errors. Sorry for the smartass answer I just couldn't resist (for the second time today).

[AlwaysFSX]

It's when you have ECC memory and it can correct errors within the bits of memory that are stored.

[cjeffcoatjr]

It corrects errors.

Really?!

[Trashcan]

How do I know when error correction kicks in? Because people have told me when you OC the memory too high that's when you get error correction.

[Trashcan]

Does it also slow down performance when you get EC?

[CwGoh]

Does it also slow down performance when you get EC?

Typically ECC memory will be slower than memory without ECC for the same price.

[CwGoh]

How do I know when error correction kicks in? Because people have told me when you OC the memory too high that's when you get error correction.

Some consumer memory does that. Full-fledged ECC is code that makes the memory scan the information on the RAM repeatedly for errors, and then corrects them when it finds flipped bits (corrupt data). Kind of like OCD double-checking.

[R4STABAN]

Run something like heaven bench with an fps overlay

If you oc your memory too high you either get artifacts, crash or error correcting

When its error correcting your fps will be much lower than normal.