How much does L2 cache on the motherboard affect performan..

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How much does pipeline cache on the motherboard affect performance?

I have an old Dell GXi that I'm going to let my daughter use, it has 256K
pipeline cache on the motherboard. I could upgrade it to 512K for $6-7. I
know the cache on a cpu makes a big difference but I don't remember on
these old machines (233Mhz).

My daughter is only 7, so an old machine is more than adequate for the
simple games she will play on it. It's the same speed as the computers in
her school, which is kinda sad really.


--
Mac Cool

 

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 01:34:19 +0000, Mac Cool wrote:

> How much does pipeline cache on the motherboard affect performance?
>
> I have an old Dell GXi that I'm going to let my daughter use, it has 256K
> pipeline cache on the motherboard. I could upgrade it to 512K for $6-7. I
> know the cache on a cpu makes a big difference but I don't remember on
> these old machines (233Mhz).
>
I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB. If you want to know how much it
affects performance, go into bios and disable it. Been a long time since I
worked on socket 7, but I tend to remember it didn't affect performance
near as much as disabling the L1 cpu cache. Of course which program you're
uisng would make a difference too. I wouldn't want L2 disabled, but from
128K to 256K isn't going to make that much of a difference.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm

 

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 07:17:18 GMT, Wes Newell <w.newell@TAKEOUTverizon.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 01:34:19 +0000, Mac Cool wrote:
>
>> How much does pipeline cache on the motherboard affect performance?
>>
>> I have an old Dell GXi that I'm going to let my daughter use, it has 256K
>> pipeline cache on the motherboard. I could upgrade it to 512K for $6-7. I
>> know the cache on a cpu makes a big difference but I don't remember on
>> these old machines (233Mhz).
>>
>I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB. If you want to know how much it
>affects performance, go into bios and disable it. Been a long time since I
>worked on socket 7, but I tend to remember it didn't affect performance
>near as much as disabling the L1 cpu cache. Of course which program you're
>uisng would make a difference too. I wouldn't want L2 disabled, but from
>128K to 256K isn't going to make that much of a difference.

L2 cache levels have diminishing returns. That is, the first 128K is a
great benefit, the next 128K less so, and so on, until it was most often a
max of 512K or rarely 1MB. There would be a much greater performance hit
from disabling all of the present 256K, than the performance advantage to
increasing that 256K to 512K. Since nothing else is changing; video,
hard drive, system memory remains the same, it's doubtful anything but a
benchmark would seem significantly faster.

It's a bit of a waste pouring any more $ into such an old system, even $6.
These days businesses are retiring faster systems that only need dusted
out, maybe a fan lubed or replaced, throwning those systems away if they
can't find recipients. Keeping an eye out for a faster used system might
be a better alternative than trying to tweak a Pentium 1 box.

 

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In article <pan.2004.06.19.07.23.59.324112@TAKEOUTverizon.net>, Wes
Newell says...

> I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB. If you want to know how much it
> affects performance, go into bios and disable it. Been a long time since I
> worked on socket 7, but I tend to remember it didn't affect performance
> near as much as disabling the L1 cpu cache.

Disabling the L2 cache on an old system returned a performance hit of
about 25% and was VERY noticable.

 

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Wes Newell <w.newell@TAKEOUTverizon.net> said:

> I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB.

Hence the subject title
--
Mac Cool

 

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 11:21:06 +0100, Conor Turton wrote:

> In article <pan.2004.06.19.07.23.59.324112@TAKEOUTverizon.net>, Wes
> Newell says...
>
>> I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB. If you want to know how much it
>> affects performance, go into bios and disable it. Been a long time since I
>> worked on socket 7, but I tend to remember it didn't affect performance
>> near as much as disabling the L1 cpu cache.
>
> Disabling the L2 cache on an old system returned a performance hit of
> about 25% and was VERY noticable.

And then diabling L1 will bring the system to a crawl. So what? Going from
128K L2 to 256K L2 will not be noticable. And that's what the question
was. I answered that but you conveniently removed it from your reply.
makes me wonder why. Here's the removed text.

Of course which program you're uisng would make a difference too. I
wouldn't want L2 disabled, but from 128K to 256K isn't going to make that
much of a difference.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm

 

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Wes Newell wrote:

> On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 11:21:06 +0100, Conor Turton wrote:
>
>
>>In article <pan.2004.06.19.07.23.59.324112@TAKEOUTverizon.net>, Wes
>>Newell says...
>>
>>
>>>I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB. If you want to know how much it
>>>affects performance, go into bios and disable it. Been a long time since I
>>>worked on socket 7, but I tend to remember it didn't affect performance
>>>near as much as disabling the L1 cpu cache.
>>
>>Disabling the L2 cache on an old system returned a performance hit of
>>about 25% and was VERY noticable.
>
>
> And then diabling L1 will bring the system to a crawl. So what? Going from
> 128K L2 to 256K L2 will not be noticable. And that's what the question
> was.

Actually, the question was going from 256K to 512K.

> I answered that but you conveniently removed it from your reply.
> makes me wonder why. Here's the removed text.
>
> Of course which program you're uisng would make a difference too. I
> wouldn't want L2 disabled, but from 128K to 256K isn't going to make that
> much of a difference.
>

 

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On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 16:55:21 +0000, Mac Cool wrote:

> Wes Newell <w.newell@TAKEOUTverizon.net> said:
>
>> I assume you mean the L2 cache on the MB.
>
> Hence the subject title

Damn, why didn't I look there.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm

 

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Mac Cool <Mac@2cool.com> wrote in message news:<Xns950CDB7C8BF3DMacCool@24.25.9.42>...

> I have an old Dell GXi that I'm going to let my daughter use,
> it has 256K pipeline cache on the motherboard. I could upgrade
> it to 512K for $6-7. I know the cache on a cpu makes a big
> difference but I don't remember on these old machines (233Mhz).

The size of the cache usually determines the maximum amount of main
memory that can be cached, and running more main memory than can be
cached usually makes the system speed slows to a crawl.

 

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On 20 Jun 2004 07:02:47 -0700, do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com (do_not_spam_me)
wrote:

>Mac Cool <Mac@2cool.com> wrote in message news:<Xns950CDB7C8BF3DMacCool@24.25.9.42>...
>
>> I have an old Dell GXi that I'm going to let my daughter use,
>> it has 256K pipeline cache on the motherboard. I could upgrade
>> it to 512K for $6-7. I know the cache on a cpu makes a big
>> difference but I don't remember on these old machines (233Mhz).
>
>The size of the cache usually determines the maximum amount of main
>memory that can be cached, and running more main memory than can be
>cached usually makes the system speed slows to a crawl.

On those boards with removable cache, a tag chip was typically needed to
increase cachable amount. If that chip isn't upgradable there is nothing
that could be done unless it's bit width happened to already support the
larger cache, which it generally wasn't since the whole point of the
lesser cache was to reduce costs, as it also is with the lesser tag. OP
didn't mention though, if the cache upgrade also provided this tag
upgrade.