Phenom II L3 cache

[Anarchist420]

Is it clocked at the same speed as the cores? If not, then why is Intel's L3 cache faster?

 

[Fox5]

Is it clocked at the same speed as the cores? If not, then why is Intel's L3 cache faster?

It's not, it's clocked around 2Ghz plus or minus 200Mhz. Overclocking it to 3ghz can give some very large improvements in certain applications, particularly games.

 

[Edrick]

If not, then why is Intel's L3 cache faster?

Because Intel has a different uArch. Not really sure how else to answer that.

 

[Gravastar]

Hi,

Is there a look-up table for this type of data? I'd be particularly to know the speeds and thresholds of the entire Phenom II line.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide 🙂

 

[blckgrffn]

Hi,

Is there a look-up table for this type of data? I'd be particularly to know the speeds and thresholds of the entire Phenom II line.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide 🙂

Pretty sure that they are all 2Ghz. AM2+ was supposed to give us a 2.2Ghz L3 (uncore?) clock, but it never happened and it seems that AMD was content to leave it at 2Ghz.

Some BD FX CPUs have slightly faster L3 caches than others, I believe.

CPU World is a good place to look for details like this.

http://www.cpu-world.com/

It would have been nice (and more competitive) for AMD to offer CPUs with a ~2.6Ghz L3 cache, but they never did for whatever reason.

 

[pelov]

The 4-module chip(s) have 2.2ghz and all the others have 2ghz, so you were right 😛

AMD does this for cache coherency with hypertransport. With a better IMC you can get some significant performance increases by bumping it up because for all intents and purposes it essentially acts like an FSB replacement. A perfect example would be how favorably a Thuban reacts to those DRAM/FSB/whatever you want to call it frequency bumps.

 

[pantsaregood]

Phenom X4 9100, 9150, and X3 8250 have 1.6 GHz L3.
Phenom X4 9850 and 9950 have 2.0 GHz L3.
The rest of the original Phenoms are at 1.8 GHz.

AM2+ Phenom IIs run at 1.8 GHz. The rest are at 2.0 GHz.

Aside from a different architecture, the L3 cache on Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge runs at the same speed at the CPU.

 

[fffblackmage]

My Phenom II X2 550BE has an L3 cache/NB Freq. running at 2.0GHz. Pretty sure I'm using AM2+, since I'm still using DDR2.

 

[soccerballtux]

mine runs at 2.6ghz

 

[pantsaregood]

My Phenom II X2 550BE has an L3 cache/NB Freq. running at 2.0GHz. Pretty sure I'm using AM2+, since I'm still using DDR2.

That's an AM3 CPU. They have DDR2 and DDR3 controllers.

 

[AtenRa]

Currently, every 95W AMD FX CPU has 2.0GHz L3. 125W Models have 2.2GHz.

 

[BD231]

Is it clocked at the same speed as the cores? If not, then why is Intel's L3 cache faster?

Probably for the same reason intels imc can double the throughput of a stock x6 using identical ram speeds.