The overall speed of a system is dependent on many different factors, and L2/L3 cache makes the overall system faster, if I understand correctly.
[just to confuse or clarify things a bit. :)]
Each subsystem has limitations, which become bottlenecks during one type of load or another. So it pays to target your upgrades at the subsystem most critical to your specific task load.
On the top of the heap is the CPU. Gotta keep that processor fed with data. Without data, the processor gets bored and racks up idle time.
Next is the L1, L2, and L3 memory caches. They're very fast (expensive!) blocks of memory that hold copies of the most recently accessed main memory, in the hopes of being able to ultra-quickly refeed it to the processor when/if it's called for again. Their speed is so critical that L1 has been moved onto the processor chip itself. In some cases, L2 also!
Next is the main memory bus, the memory controller, and the DIMMs. The closer the bus' speed is to the processor's speed, the more efficient. Gotta feed the caches as fast as possible!
Many magnitudes slower are the peripheral buses (PCI, PCI-X, AGP) and the i/o controllers that plug into them, eg: IDE, SATA, SCSI, FC, Ether, etc.
And magnitues slower still are the peripherals themselves - hard drives, monitors, etc.
At 06:58 PM -0400 04/19/2004, Timothy J. Luoma wrote:
In the Pentium world, a 750mhz is not 50% faster than a 500mhz. Is that true for G4 as well?
If you're comparing identical family processors, with just speedbumps, then you can do the raw math, but that's rare. Engineers don't just do speed bumps. They often other changes are made within the processor - increased L1 cache, smaller gate fabrication technologies (smaller = faster), etc, to make the chip more "efficient". And of course, the computer manufacturer also tweaks the bus speeds and cache sizes... It all adds up...
HTH, - Dan.
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