Intel CPU advice

[amdxborg]

How does a P4 3GHz with 1meg l2 cache compare to a P4 3GHz with 2meg l2 cache in DC? Will this make a difference and if so, in what projects?

edit.. since the 1meg one is half the price of the 2meg one..

Thanx!

 

[petrusbroder]

Very good question - would be interested in an answer too - but I know too little ... 🙂

 

[Oxaqata]

Well my 1Mb version only gets 2s slower than my friends 2Mb version in a 1M superpi. It should be noted though that my version is a socket 478.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

I know that the classic SETI got a big time boos when CPUs went from 256k cache to 500k and then to 1 mb, because then allmost all of the core code lines could fit into the cache and latency went down big time as well.

Today I don't think that the cache makes that much of a difference anymore. As BOINC projects have memory footprints basically always larger than 10 MB, I'd say it won't matter much. F@H also has a really large footprint these days.

I read a lot about comparing the different cache sizes on the X2 CPUs from AMD and only in very specific and small apps, the extra cache gave some 5% to 7% gain over the smaller cache at same clock speed.

In that respect, go for the cheaper one! It might be a tadd slower, but it'll also consume less power 😉

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: BlackMountainCow
In that respect, go for the cheaper one! It might be a tadd slower, but it'll also consume less power 😉

And thus runs cooler as well, so you can overclock it more, and make up that difference in no time. 😀

 

[networkman]

Although I can't provide recent benchmarks, my extensive experience with Xeon processors tells me that you're going to pay a steep premium for 2meg L2 cache processors over what you'd pay for 1meg L2 processors, and you're not likely going to see much difference.

Only when I was running very intensive database operations would I see a performance gain with 2meg L2 cache processors, but for DC, 1meg was more than sufficient. 🙂

 

[CupCak3]

i know you're asking about intel but on OCed sempron and one of my bartons have very close clock speeds. the barton is clocked a bit faster but never beats the sempron by more than 5%. This is coming from folding@home.

Hopefully this helps.

 

[amdxborg]

Thanx for all the advice guys! It helps a lot! 😀

From now they'll be purchasing P4 3.2GHz 1meg l2 cpu's at work.. instead of the P4 3GHz 2meg l2 versions, which for some reason has become very scarce and its still a LOT cheaper!! So.. more power for me! 😀

 

[Wiz]

I have the LGA 775 version of the P4 3.0 2mb cache.
It OC's to 3.46ghz in the fall - spring months.
3.3ghz in the summer.

I don't believe there is much difference at all (barely noticed) between this & the 1mb version for DC. It doeshelp with heavy duty apps like database & graphics & video production, but not DC. (IMHO)

 

[caferace]

Get an 805D for ~$100 and OC the hell out of it. Sure, you'll spend a bit on power but it's my fastest rig now, and runs at only 88F at full load using a Thermaltake Big Typhoon.

-jim

 

[GLeeM]

There is a database of different CPUs and how they do on F@H WUs here - http://www.fahinfo.org/index.php