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Thread ID: 38473	2003-10-08 05:46:00	Please Explain MOBO RAM	Winston001 (3612)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
181350	2003-10-09 21:39:00	L1 cache is located within the processor, described as onboard, and L2 cache is (or used to be) located on the motherboard. However to make things a bit more confusing, L2 cache can also be said to be "onboard". The difference between these is that L1 cache is actually part of the processor while onboard L2 cache is external to the processor but still part part of the physical package. L3 cache is what L2 cache used to be, ie cache that is located on the motherboard. Hope that makes sense B.	Barnabas (4562)
181351	2003-10-09 21:47:00	and how does the cache function?AS in Why do we need 2 cache?isn't one l2 cache is enough?	yingxuan (3330)
181352	2003-10-09 22:01:00	Cache funtions by trying to guess what information your computer will need next, based on the previous things you did or by storing commonly used instructions. That way the processor doesnt have to retrieve items from RAM which takes longer. The difference between L1 and L2 cache is L1 is physically part of the processor. L2 cache is not physically part of the processor but is located within the same physical housing as the processor. L1 cache is faster then L2 cache because it is closer to the processor but it cant be to big because of physical size constraints (which is why the P2 chip was a weird shape, it had 512KB of onboard L2 cache). We need L2 cache because it still speeds up the computer a lot more then normal RAM. Thats my understanding of it anyway. B.	Barnabas (4562)
181353	2003-10-09 23:21:00	with the p2 intel couldn't fit the L2 cache onboard so they put the proceesor and external L2 cache on a daughter card and slot 1 was born. it wasn't till p3 that L2 was ondie. there is a few differences between L1 and L2, not only speed but the way they work. as far as home pc buyers are concerned bigger is generally better. ie the celeron is basiclly a p4 with a big chunk of cache disabled. the best thing is to look at the over all performance of the cpu. a few have come out with L3 cache, eg k6-3 (L3 on mobo)	tweak'e (174)
181354	2003-10-09 23:44:00	the best thing is to look at the over > all performance of the cpu. Do you mean the speed of the CPU? As I understand it performance depends on cache capacity, speed of the Front Side Bus, and RAM or is the CPU rated clock speed sufficent info? Cheers Winston001	Winston001 (3612)
181355	2003-10-10 00:48:00	what i mean is ignore the mhz fsb etc and go by the actuall real world speed that you would get with that cpu. their are lots of sites with benchmarks on cpu's. that way you will get a bettter idea on what actuall useability perr $$ spent.	tweak'e (174)
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