Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 08:51:27 08/20/04
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On August 20, 2004 at 10:51:50, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On August 20, 2004 at 04:33:07, Tom Kerrigan wrote: > >>Now that AMD is selling two processors that are identical other than L2 cache >>size (Sempron has 256k, Athlon 64 has 512k) we have proof of Crafty's working >>set size: >> >>Sempron: 1,080,020 NPS >>Athlon 64: 1,080,230 NPS >> >>http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2170&p=3 >> >>This should prove once and for all that Crafty's working set is < 256k and >>therefore that size of L2 cache has no effect on its performance (as long as >>it's >= 256k) and that main memory speed likely plays a trivial role >>performance-wise. >> >>I bring this up because of all of the long debates that have occurred in the >>past about the value of L2 cache, the speed of memory, and the working set size >>of chess programs. >> >>I have no doubt that Crafty uses a bunch of memory, but obviously not with >>enough temporal locality for it to matter one iota. >> >>-Tom > > >Your interpretation _could_ be seriously flawed. IE suppose its working set is >2mb? You can't conclude anything if that is true as both the 256K and 512K >would be thrashing equally. How is it they would by thrashing equally? Let's say a cache access takes 5ns and main memory takes 50ns. Average access times for 2MB working set: 256k cache: (256k/2MB)*5ns + (2MB-256k/2MB)*50ns = 44.37ns 512k cache: (512k/2MB)*5ns + (2MB-512k/2MB)*50ns = 38.75ns That's 15% faster. You'd think a difference that big would show up in the benchmark score but it doesn't. Or are you going to claim that Crafty always uses memory that it hasn't used for the last ~512k? >Only _real_ way is to test with larger sizes as well. I've done that up to 2mb >and saw improvement from 512 to 1024K and from 1024K to 2048K, on older xeons. Sure. And if other people run those tests and don't see a difference, you'd say a chip needed a 4MB/8MB cache for anybody to be sure. I have easy access to 2GHz Athlon 64s with 512k and 1MB cache... if somebody can point me to a Windows Crafty executable and tell me what to type, I'll happily run the test. -Tom
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