Is 6MB L2 cache much better than 3MB on a Core 2 Duo?

[TurtleCrusher]

Huh, interesting. Most of my experience with 775 was with Desktops, and I don't recall ever seeing that technology for their desktop CPUs.

Indeed. The multiplier of the P8700 is 9.5, but can hit 10 in specific situations where the CPU is loaded on one core only. Here is a CPU-z validation of it.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

As you can see here, the multiplier is load-specific. When coming off a large load (80%+ down to nothing) the FSB cuts in half and the multiplier momentarily hits 2, making temps drop ultra quick.

 

[krumme]

FX is bad for ST compared to desktop Intel CPUs like Sandy Bridge-Haswell, compared to Core 2 Duo, specially at 2.5GHz, the 4GHz FX is good for single thread...

you are focusing on cache more than you should in my opinion, yes, it can help in this game, but you are still talking about a difference that could be difficult to notice,

all 45nm "Core 2"
e5300 16,8FPS (2.60GHz FSB 200 2MB l2)
e7300 18,6FPS (2.66GHz FSB 266 3MB l2)
e8200 22,1FPS (2.66GHz FSB 333 6MB l2)




3% GPU load sounds wrong, unless the game is frozen or something,
also you might be overestimating your GPU, the 3650 only had 120sps from the HD 3000 era (3850 had 320) and the 500MHz DDR2 makes the memory bandwidth really low ... even the 8600M GT mentioned earlier would have a clear advantage, or current Intel IGPs.

Well here is the decision data. I recall as you that bus speed didnt have much impact but imo the difference from 2 to 6mb l2 of +25% shown here is very high.
It shows imo the cache can be limiting. And if you play at sub 25fps 5 fps is very noticiable going from 2 mb to 6mb.
But now he is on 3mb so 3 fps difference...lol its close.
But damn i wouldnt have thought the diference was so big.