ZTE Apache May Become First Eight-Core Smartphone

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Hmmm... aren't cache blocks tied to particular cores (why do they say cache per core)? If that's true, then if the cores aren't being used, the cache wouldn't be used either, right?[/citation]

That isn't true for the L3 cache. Intel and AMD enable/disable L3 cache in any way they choose regardless of the CPU configuration. All CPU cores can access all of the L3 cache in each CPU, at least with modern CPUs. Multi-CPU systems and maybe also some multi-die CPUs do not share L3 between CPUs/dies, but within a given CPU (at least with a single die), that CPU has its L3 shared among all cores of that CPU.

For example, disabling 3MiB of cache from 15MiB to 12MiB with the i7-3960X/3970X to the 3930K didn't change core configuration at all. Disabling 4MiB of L3 on the FX-4300 didn't change core/module configuration at all. Disabling cache on the various LGA 1155 CPUs doesn't impact core configuration at all either, although Intel does segregate different CPUs with cache along with core count (that is not out of necessity, that is simply how Intel decided to segregate their CPUs form other models).

Other examples include various Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs (some models from both have disabled L3 cache that is not at all correlated to core count) and many others.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]That isn't true for the L3 cache. Intel and AMD enable/disable L3 cache in any way they choose regardless of the CPU configuration. All CPU cores can access all of the L3 cache in each CPU, at least with modern CPUs. Multi-CPU systems and maybe also some multi-die CPUs do not share L3 between CPUs/dies, but within a given CPU (at least with a single die), that CPU has its L3 shared among all cores of that CPU.For example, disabling 3MiB of cache from 15MiB to 12MiB with the i7-3960X/3970X to the 3930K didn't change core configuration at all. Disabling 4MiB of L3 on the FX-4300 didn't change core/module configuration at all. Disabling cache on the various LGA 1155 CPUs doesn't impact core configuration at all either, although Intel does segregate different CPUs with cache along with core count (that is not out of necessity, that is simply how Intel decided to segregate their CPUs form other models).Other examples include various Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs (some models from both have disabled L3 cache that is not at all correlated to core count) and many others.[/citation]
Ah! Thanks for the clarification. My CPU only has L2 so...hadn't looked into this (L3) too much, just assumed it was similar. My mistake! But yeah, thanks