cache

[Soulkeeper]

is it possible to add more cache to a classic slot a athlon ???
would it be detected and used ??
anyone ever added cache to a processor ??
ideas ?
thoughts ?

 

[rimshaker]

The classic athlon had off-chip L2 cache right? Hmmm.... not impossible i would think. But you would need access to and change the internal cpu microcodes. I'm sure AMD engineers could do it if they wanted. But consumers don't have the necessary eqipment or the company-secret information about that.

But if you were talking about replacing L1 or L2 cache that was on-die, that's impossible at the consumer level. We're talking about wafer-level modification in this case. It's been permanently manufactured on the chip.

 

[interchange]

Changing the cache on the chip would be impossible anyway; There's just too much complexity. However, even with the cache off the die, there still needs to be a very short path from the processor to the cache, and it would be basically impossible for non-professionals to even try doing that by hand. Adding more cache would require some complex hardware modification that's probably not possible because, as I said, these things have to be VERY close to meet timing specs. Even if you could do that, I would think you'd have to re-design the chipset to support more cache.