Big L2 or L3 cache, Big Deal or Overrated?

[Dave Perry]

Hi guys. I'll be getting an upgraded PC put together to replace my Dell by early next year. I'm hearing so many iffy things about the Prescotts (not the least of which is that their performance figures don't even look that great), and the P4 EE's are so bizarrely overpriced, should I just go with a normal Northwood, 3.0 or 3.2 probably?

Does the big fancy schmancy L2/L3 cache make a big difference or is it not that noticeable?

 

[Bar81]

Why don't you actually read a review or two and figure it out for yourself

 

[Dave Perry]

I've already heard conflicting opinions. I'm looking for more. Is that alright?

 

[0roo0roo]

look at reviews on anandtech and tomshardware etc.

 

[Dave Perry]

I'll do that. Just thought I'd ask if there were any outright opinions from "real" users (i.e., they upgraded to the bigger cache and didn't "feel" any improvement---in other words, though the actual stastics look better, the real world experience wasn't that much improved). I haven't looked at the reviews you listed, but I have looked at others, and though the numbers certainly look better, sometimes it's hard to know if those kinds of measurements really translate into enough of a boost to justify the price (and the risk of experiencing problems with Prescotts). It's that kind of opinion I'm looking for, which you don't necessarily get from reviews (for example, someone on another board told me "the only thing extreme about the P4 EE is the price" whereas hard numbers make it look better all around than the ordinary Northwoods or the Prescotts), but I will look at more reviews too.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Originally posted by: Dave Perry

sometimes it's hard to know if those kinds of measurements really translate into enough of a boost to justify the price (and the risk of experiencing problems with Prescotts).

There is no performance to justify the 8 or 9 hundred dollars for the Extreme edition...if u wanna go nuts just to go scream "yayyyyy i got the latest technology..." n dont care about money then yes u can go ahead n get it...
I see u r not a fan of athlon64... so id take a look at those LGA775 sockets.. as latest technology much cheaper than EE, but im not sure how good they are.

 

[fuzzynavel]

Ask yourself what you are going to be using the computer for, if it is a gaming rig then you can't go wrong with an Athlon64....but if you are doing scientific stuff then, yes the cache will make a big difference so go for a P4...northwood or prescott....the choice is yours......From what I have read the prescott gets better with the higher clocked processors....but you will need decent cooling! If you are going to hang around 2.8-3.2 ghz then the northwood usually wins but above that is prescott territory!

edited to stop the spelling nazis getting me!

 

[UK Frost]

The Prescotts themselves are not 'Iffy' they just aren't an improvement over Northwood.
The reason they come with 1mb of cache is not for some performance enhancing reason but simply to try and compensate for the chips longer pipes and higher latency.There are not a lot of benches that show the Prescott as having an advantage.They also generate more heat and consume more power.
If i was looking for an Intel right now i would go for the best Northwood/Mobo combo i could afford.

To answer your second question,yes the cache can make a lot of difference but always remember it's not the only factor to take into account.A typical example is the AMD64 3800 and FX53 where the latter has 512 more cache.The difference is not that large performance wise but that can be attributed to the addition of the memory controller on those chips that manage the memory more efficiently which can compensate somewhat for the lower amount of ram.

Think of memory lika a pyramid with the cpu being at the top.The closer the ram to the cpu the lower latency and faster it will be.So roughly you would have CPU cache memory/System ram/HDrive.
That is a rough description only and you would have to read about Inclusive and exclusive types also to see all the ramifications but basically more will always be better.Whether it's worth the price or not is another debate.

 

[Geomagick]

The prescott's real strengths lie in the fact that it is possible to scale to much higher clock speeds than the Northwood cores and by using the 1MB cache the true ability of the chip gradually becomes more visible the faster it goes assuming you keep to an 800FSB speed.

However when just buying a 'PC' the Northwood should be the chip of choice on S478, and if you must go for LGA775 then get the fastest chip you can afford at the moment. Assuming that you do not intend on overclocking that is.

From my personnal experience I have run both Northwood and Prescott P4 chips on my S478 platform and to the naked eye there is little difference between them, only when you get the benchmark scores out is there much difference.

My final piece of advice is that set yourself a date and a budget and on that date spend that budget on the best you can, otherwise you never end up upgrading your PC.

 

[sao123]

a slightly larger L2 cache is far superior to having a smaller L2 cache + a 2MB L3 cache.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: sao123
a slightly larger L2 cache is far superior to having a smaller L2 cache + a 2MB L3 cache.

I feel like this would vastly depend on the application. If the application's working set can fit into the larger L2 cache (but can't fit into the smaller L2 cache), then obviously that's the better choice. But in a other cases it's better to have more (slightly slower) cache than less (faster) cache.

 

[Dave Perry]

I guess, then, the best Pentium would be the fastest Prescott, since the EE is too expensive. I have to get on the net and look for more info on the cooling issue. I will be running a fairly processor intensive program (Tascam Gigastudio 3), so I really don't want shutdowns.

I'm a virgin when it comes to AMD stuff, and haven't really researched those MOBO's either. I guess I might have to look into that.

Thanks for the replies!

Dave