AMD VS Intel CPU L2 Cache size

[dune]

What is the most reason that AMD CPUs have smaller L2 caches in comparison of Intel's L2 cache size?

[Platypus]

I think it mostly comes down to cost and diminishing returns. The manufacturers have to balance the benefit of extra performance against the high cost of extra cache. The balance will be affected by a lot of factors, like the design architecture of the processors, the dimensions of the fabrication process and cost considerations like the manufacturing costs and capacity of each manufacturer and the price points of the processors.

Each manufacturer has selected the size of cache that their design architecture gets the most worthwhile benefit from without the cost pushing the chip price too high against the competitor's equivalent chip.

[dune]

I think speed of CPU cache memory type is very high & Intel often has large cache on its CPUs
By now when Intel beats AMD by CORE 2 DUO architecture ,why AMD CPUs have a little cache size yet? (mostly 2x512 or 2x1024 for athlon X2 CPUs).
don't they want to achieve more power now?

[Matridom]

I know cache size has a play on the performance of some applications. Additionaly, the larger the cache size, the slower the performance of said cache, so it's very much a trade off game, is the slower cache speed worth the effect on some applications being speed up?

Personaly, I would look at a minimum per core to be 512k, more the better.

[dune]

I've seen some benchmarks but what is your opinion
Which one is better for gaming now?
AMD Athlon 5000+ X2 or Intel E6420(4mb L2 Cache)?

[Matridom]

I've seen some benchmarks but what is your opinion
Which one is better for gaming now?
AMD Athlon 5000+ X2 or Intel E6420(4mb L2 Cache)?

I've not used the AMD processor, but i just got an E6600 (just before the 6420's came out)

This sucker is fast, no doubt about it, it even over clocks very very nicely, I got a 33% over clock on it now and that's considered a "mild" over clock for this processor.

People in general look only at the benchmarks for what processor they want to go with, the way i look at it is slightly different;

If your getting something that's capable of running a game at 100 Frames a sec, is 2 frames really a big deal? specially when the human eye can only see 24-30 frames per second?

Does it really matter that this processor can ripe a movie 5 seconds faster then that processor when it only takes 5 minutes to begin with?

What i think it will come down to is that either processor is a great processor and you won't go wrong either way. This will be especially true if your upgrading from an older processor (like i did coming from a barton). What you need to look for are what are the other options offered by the processor.

Vritualization, Energy consumption, Heat dissipation, overclocking, etc.

Current system:
Asus p5n32-e SLI
Core2duo - E6600 @ 3.2Ghz
Asus 8800 GTS-320
75 Gig Raptor HDD
2 gigs corsair 6400

[dune]

But, a good motherboard for a core 2 is more expensive often...isn't it?
ASUS p5b vs m2n-e...
What about price?
ENERGY CONSUMPTION? Follow this :
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/05/...pu/page11.html
The great power of AMD CPUs in calculating floating points & etc. for none?
Cool'n'Quiet is also great...
AMD's low memory latency...

>"I've not used the AMD processor"
>"like i did coming from a barton"

I thought the Barton is a trademark of kind of AMD's.


I know that Intel Core Duo is great now. but there is something about AMD CPUs ...
I don't know what it is.I think AMD is also great ...
Intel every day increases the L2 cache & if AMD does...I don't know why AMD does not.

[Matridom]

>"I've not used the AMD processor"
>"like i did coming from a barton"

I thought the Barton is a trademark of kind of AMD's.

Intel every day increases the L2 cache & if AMD does...I don't know why AMD does not.

I was referring to the model you listed. I've used both AMD and Intel in the past.

As to why, it's simple: Cost.

the L2 cache for example of core2duo (4mb) is about 1/2 the processor itself. (i'm not 100% sure on that)

Less Cache = less failures = Better yields = more money