CPU cache memory

[CoolDude91321]

Describe what is meant by cache memory

 

[Guest]

https://youtu.be/sHqNMHf2UNI

 

[KeelinTy]

There are different layers of memory

L1, L2, L3, Ram, and Hdd

L1,2 and 3 are build directly onto the CPU themselves and are fairly tiny but extremely fast which is used to feed info into the cpu. I believe l1 and l2 are about 1.2TBps while L3 is about 800GBps transfer speeds.
Then you have ram which is a second layer of caching for the cpu, and then the hard drive which feed info into the ram.

I may not have explained it too accurately but here is a good video that explains it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHqNMHf2UNI

 

[synphul]

As others suggested it's high speed memory closest to the cpu, it holds data being directly fed to the cpu for processing. Ram is a larger bank of memory at slower speeds and is the next data storage in line to the cpu. Nothing to be overly concerned about since it can't be altered or changed, more can't be added. It's built into the cpu.

It may contribute to how well a cpu performs but it's not something to be worried about since the engineers have already determined how much cache it has. A cpu either performs well in certain tests or it doesn't and it's built upon several contributing things, cache being only one of them. Cpu's with more cores like an r7 1800x tend to have more cache than an r5 1600 just like an i7 tends to have more cache than an i5. More cores or hyper threaded cores rely on more data being fed to them otherwise performance would suffer.

If you have two people carrying buckets of water and only 1 hose to fill those buckets, water can only be moved so fast. If you move the number of people to 3 or 4 carrying the same buckets (processor cores) but still only have that 1 hose (x amount of cache) and you didn't add another hose (more cache) the people will be waiting around for something to do. Adding more cache to cpu's with more cores is like adding a second hose so when there are more buckets they're moving at the same speed.

Even if you determine that a cpu may perform better if it had 8 or 12mb of cache instead of 6mb not much can be done, it's already been built that way. One cpu won't magically perform better against another simply because it has more cache, the overall components and design that make up a cpu determine that. Meaning if you take cpu x and compare it to cpu y in a benchmark and they're tied for performance per benchmark testing, if one has more cache than the other it's not an better off.