[mdlug] L1 & L2 Cache AMD & Intel

[Dan Pritts]

If you are doing processor-intensive stuff AND the data set and the
code are small enough that it fits into whatever cache you have,
you will have much improved performance vs. not fitting in your
cache.

For typical "home office" applications you probably won't notice
much if any difference.  you probably won't notice a whole lot of
difference between one of these and a $75 Athlon X2.  

without knowing more about what "home office" means to you, I'd
suggest you spend the difference in price on more system memory rather
than a better CPU.

On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 07:53:54AM -0800, David Lane wrote:
> Currently I'm building a home office infrastructure, and I'm taking a good look at CPU's.  It seems that Intel offers CPU's with more L2 cache.  And the Q6600 is a good example and runs about $250 OEM +/- where the AMD Phenom starts at 199.00.  Both have 128k L1 cache, but the Intel Q6700  has 4M L2 Cache in addition to 128k L1 But is a wopping $539.00 
> 
> I do Have E6600 and E6400 Intel chips and am very happy with them.  The E6600 runs Open Suse 10.3 and the E6400 runs Windows XP (yes, there are a hand full of application that run only on windows that I need).  Both with  good SATA hard drives are quite responsive.
> 
> The Techs tell me that the cache helps make the system faster, and that is the $300 difference in the Q6600 and the Q6700. Currently I'm happy with my E6400 & E6600.  
> 
> Does any know what performance yield is the extra cache on the Q6700?
> 
> David C. Lane 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
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danno
--
dan pritts
danno at umich.edu
734-929-9770