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Does Cache Size Really Boost Performance?

@ 2007/10/25

The next Core 2 generation based on the 45-nm Penryn core will even carry up to 6 MB of L2 cache. Is this just marketing bluff or does the swelling of L2 cache capacities indeed lead to better performance? Let's find out.

Comment from Kougar @ 2007/10/25

Saturation point couldn't be that much higher than 12MB? There is only so much available bandwidth / time available for prefetching use before anything extra would be moot. Intel's 65nm Tulsa had a 16mb L3 cache... anyone ever do any cache analysis with that one?

Everything will change with CSI though, I feel more cache will continue to be added with the 32nm Nehalem, aka "Westmere" since CSI will allow faster prefetching ability.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/10/25

ignoring price, what would be the saturation point?

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/10/25

I think, considering cache costs a lot of money, Intel and AMD know exactly why they give the chips a certain amount of cache.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/10/25

interesting would be to find out at what point extra L2 cache no longer makes a difference, 6Mb will still give a nice boost

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