I put "ECC or non-ECC" in Google. Summary of findings:
• ECC has an extra chip on the board that checks for errors on the fly.
• This gives slightly more reliable memory at a performance cost of about 2%.
• Regular memory is plenty reliable for the most part; ECC is recommended for servers and 'computation intensive' applications. I don't know if we would include AC modeling and rendering under this 'intensive' heading, but I tend to doubt it. It sounds like it's designed to lessen the chance of the machine crashing, where a crashed machine would be very bad.
• The extra cost of ECC on a 1GB stick at Crucial is $6. I.e., 0.
• You cannot mix the types.
So far, I'm leaning heavily towards 'NON'.
