Thread: Does the extra l3 cache worths those extra bucks?

i am confused between athlon and phenoms but cant decide which one to go since athlons are cheaper but the misses l3 cache which makes phenoms expensive ones.What to do?

I guess a proper understanding of a Cache memory functions is required..

A cache is an incredibly fast memory(>>RAM) generally located in the Processor itself, where a pool of data from addresses which have the highest probability of getting used is stored.

Now L1 cache the fastest is pretty small. so when the data is nt available there it looks in L2 cache... and if i still dont get the biggest L3 cache..

In phenom x4 each core has its own L1 and L2 Cache while they share a common L3 Cache(6 MB)..

And the cache efficiency depends on the cache hits which occurs when the data required is in cache else we call it a miss which involves a fetch from RAM(obviously stalling the speed)..

It also depends on the associativity , the Algo used...(which i guess goes a bit out ofscope)

Now coming back to ur question... if ur happy with clock speed that athlon offers.. dnt worry about the L3 cache...as it offers pretty less performance gains..

Here is a link to a detailed explanation on tom's hardware

Rww.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-l3-cache,2416.html]Athlon II Or Phenom II: Does Your CPU Need L3 Cache? : L3 Cache: How Important Is It To AMD?[/url]

change that r to w As imnt allowed to post urls!!!!(15 posts it seems)
Hope this helps...

i was looking for that.

in short - Yes, cache does help in gaming, but if you cant afford the Phenoms, the Athlons are also really good.

i am now gathering money for phenom to have some futureproof system.

is it good to go with phenom ii x2 555, what r the chances that one can unlock the core to make it quad core... what is the success rate
will its worth a try when quad athlon and 555 are of same price...
do one require after market cooler after successful unlock, i'll buy PC in nxt week,

suggest me samsung,dell monitor, with hdmi, full HD 22"
is it good to go with zebronics cabinet...
should one get DDR3 matched sticks or two individual module work fine?

it will be a fine to go with phenom x2 be.the chances are little and depends on the batch no of processor and the mother board bios.

Zebronics cabinets are excellent.just make sure that they have got enough room for your gfx card and hdd.
get a good psu if you are going for a high\mid end gfx card.

having rams of different make will work fine.just make sure they have same frequency,else the ram at high frequency(expensive)will behave as slower frequency ram(cheaper)to make compatibility.

there r a lot of kit rams available, which are costing me around rs.1k more than individual modules, is it worth buying kit rams

it should be fine.the brands ocz,transcend,corsair are considerd the best rams.kinston,hynix etc are generally low performers.but you can go for them if you are not in overclocking stuff.as there will be very little difference to notice.

the rams with high frequency will benefit you in gaming.so my recommendation is to get a high frequency ram like 800MHz for ddr2 and 1033MHz for DDr3.

with the P2 555BE unlock chances are pretty high with the right motherboard....

do one require after market cooler after successful unlock, i'll buy PC in nxt week,

suggest me samsung,dell monitor, with hdmi, full HD 22"
is it good to go with zebronics cabinet...

I guess since the other 2 questions were answered i would answer these... U wouldnt require an after market cooler unless ur planning to overclock..

and if ur a budget guy i would suggest benq monitors.. they are worth the buck u spend.

and zebronics cabinets would do...(if u want a fancy look and feaures CM cabinet would do!!!!)