If you're playing your games under CPU-bound setting, you're wasting your video card.
Originally posted by: harpoon84
Originally posted by: sutahz
Originally posted by: harpoon84
Not even close. 6MB L2 owns 1MB L2 in gaming.
Im not going to go find it but different cpu's at the same speed but with different cache sizes (1M, 2M, 4M) showed that 1->2M showed a bit of performance boost but 2->4M was minimal. 1M performed well enough though as without fraps running I'd like to tell if you can tell the difference between 120fps and 160fps. Or between 80 and 190 for that matter.
So to say 6M cache ownes 1M has some truth to it but you may as well said 2M owns 1M and you'd be 90%+ on the same track.
Yes, as you get to the larger caches you will see diminishing returns, but the fact remains that clock for clock, an E8x00 chip is around 20% faster than an E21x0 chip in gaming.
Regarding this..
After toying with E8400 for some time now, my conclusion is that this L2 is a different L2. I have used E2160, E6400, E6600, and E8400 all at 3.6GHz at one point or another so I have the general 'feel' of what L2 is capable of, and some screenshots to back that up.
Going 1MB (E2160) -> 2MB (E6400) -> 4MB (E6600): Bigger L2 shows, but there are as many cases where tight strap/memory timings can let smaller L2 keep up with the bigger L2. e.g. E2160 @3.6GHz
can be as fast as E6600 @3.6GHz in many applications. (But not all)
On the other hand, I wasn't able to match the performance of E8400 with 1MB/2MB/4MB L2 CPUs, no matter what I did. So my conclusion is that it's not just the size of L2 when it comes to Wolfdale. Of course the size helps, but it's either the improved core, or the improved cache that makes more difference than just the size itself.
Facebook
Twitter