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Subject: Re: Any CPU advice, please

Author: Tom Kerrigan

Date: 10:58:56 08/04/00

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On August 04, 2000 at 05:46:59, stuart taylor wrote:

>On August 04, 2000 at 01:55:11, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>
>>On August 03, 2000 at 22:20:55, stuart taylor wrote:
>>
>>>On August 03, 2000 at 21:13:46, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 03, 2000 at 20:21:14, stuart taylor wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On August 03, 2000 at 19:23:37, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On August 03, 2000 at 18:59:54, stuart taylor wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On August 03, 2000 at 14:26:49, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On August 03, 2000 at 01:22:18, stuart taylor wrote:>>256k L2 cache is better than regular Athlons 512k?
>>>>
>>>>I believe that HIARCS would run faster on the old Athlon because it has a bigger
>>>>cache. HIARCS runs extremely fast on Power Macs with 1MB of L2 cache.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>-Tom
>>>
>>>So size of L2 cache, and its speed, ARE two different things then!?
>>>S.Taylor
>>
>>Yes. The cartridges of old Athlons contain several chips. One is the processor
>>and the rest are the L2 cache. The L2 cache runs at some fraction of the
>>processor's clock speed, like 1/2 or 1/3.
>>
>>The Tbird is one chip and it has L2 cache built-in. Because it's on the same
>>chip, the L2 cache runs at the same frequency as the processor.
>>
>>The Tbird's cache is faster because it's closer to the processor and it runs at
>>a higher frequency.
>>
>>-Tom
>
>I mean, so Hiarcs (and possibly new programs to come) prefers "bigger" L2 cache,
>rather than "faster" L2 cache? Or am I mixed up?
>
>Is Tomshardware named after you? Didn't I once see a mirror site with Hebrew?
>S.Taylor

I can only wish that Tom's Hardware was my site. I'm sure that Tom Pabst is
making a fortune off of it. I don't know if he has a Hebrew mirror.

Anyway, depending on how a program uses memory, it can prefer a bigger L2 cache
over a faster one. There's a big penalty when your program misses cache and has
to go to main memory. In some cases, the extra speed of the Tbird's cache isn't
enough to compensate for the extra penalties.

-Tom



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