Methods and apparatus relating to techniques for avoiding cache lookup for cold cache. In an example, an apparatus comprises logic, at least partially comprising hardware logic, to receive metadata from an application, wherein the meta data indicates one or more processing operations which can accommodate a predetermined level of bit errors in read operations from memory, determine, from the metadata, pixel data for which error correction code bypass is acceptable, and generate one or more error correction code bypass hints for subsequent cache access to the pixel data for which error correction code bypass is acceptable, and transmit the one or more error correction code bypass hints to a graphics processing pipeline. Other embodiments are also disclosed and claimed.