How do you determine the speed of the Level 2 Cache?

Antoneo

Diamond Member
May 25, 2001
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My friend has an old Pentium II 400... its in the old style slot 1 plastic packaging (I think its called SECC1).
He wants to know the speed of the level 2 cache chips inside without opening the plastic housing it self.
Is it possible to find out the speed of the cache solely from the stepping number? He wants to see if it is a P2 450 marked down to 400 and then overclock it if it is... Any insight would be helpful!
 

kreno

Senior member
Feb 6, 2001
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1/2 of core clock speed, so 400 / 2 = 200MHz

If it's a 450 then it should be able to keep to hit that speed with little or no effort
 

AndyHui

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member<br>AT FAQ M
Oct 9, 1999
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Since the Slot 1 L2 cache are discrete chips located on the PCB substrate, it has nothing to do with the actual processor core stepping.

Really, the only way that you can tell is to check the chips themselves.

For Slot 1 processors, the nominal operating speed is half that of core speed.
 

Windogg

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,241
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1/2 Core speed:
Klamath (Pentium II .35 Micron)
Deschutes (Pentium II .25 Mircon)
Tonga (Mobile Pentium II .25 Micron)
Katmai (Pentium III .25 Micron)

Full Core Speed:
Coppermine (Pentium III .18 Micron)
Coppermine 128 (Celeron II .18 Micron)
Mendocino (Celerom A .25 Micron)
Dixon (Mobile Pentium II .25 Micron)
Xeon (Pentium II Xeon .25 Micron)
Cascades (Pentium III Xeon .18 Micron)
Tanner (Pentium III Xeon .25 Micron)

No Cache:
Covington (Celeron .25 Micron)

Off the top of my head. Accuracy not guaranteed.

Windogg

EDIT:
Geyserville - (Pentium III .18 Micron) w/ Speedstep - Full Speed L2
Tualatin - (Pentium III .13 Micron) - Full Speed L2