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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (52815)	8/29/2001 11:20:01 PM
From: fyodor_	Respond to of 275872

Jim: So 64k L2 to 256k L2 gives about 5-10% performance boost. Sorry I can't see Intel adding all those transistors to Northwood to get that much IPC. Not as long as they have such a Mhz lead... Since when did they give anyone a break like that... never know... That's not quite a fair way to look at it. 192kB --> 384kB is more fair. For the P4, doubling the L2 cache would increase the total cache by a similar factor (i.e. 2) since there is precious little L1. Add to that the following points: - Cache becomes more important as processor frequencies go up (all other things being equal). - The FPU of the P4 cannot use the (data) L1, at all, making the L2 cache even more important. - Neither the Duron nor the Athlon in the stated example have hardware prefetching. This feature, while increasing overall performance, will tend to increase the amount of L2 cache needed. In conclusion, the increase could well be significantly more than the "5-10%" you speculate. -fyo