does the L2 cache make that much difference?

[goosy22]

i recently started up another crappy computer i have laying around and i noticed it loaded win 98se and ran the same programs a lot faster than the comp listed in my sig... the comp's are set up very similar but the major factors ofthe faster feeling one... it has a pentium mmx running at 233Mhz with a 512KB L2 cache and 32MB of RAM...

it just doesn't seem logical that there is like 2-3 mins loading time differences between the computers... i know the amount and type of stuff loaded at startup by windows can make a difference, but running the same programs yielded very different results... my question is: does the L2 cache make that huge of a difference between processor performance?

 

[The_Other_One]

That big of a difference in speed, it's probably from spyware, fragments, etc etc. Larger cache's will make comps run faster, but not by that much(comparing your 633 to the 233...)

 

[fade2green514]

yea agreed. i don't believe cache matters enough to upgrade to a new processor. i just went with the cheapest proc because it performs really well anyways.

 

[4W4K3]

In short:

" Data is transmitted from the processor chip into main memory through the L2 cache. This stops a data bottleneck. L2 cache that's 256K in size can handle the cache functionality for up to 64Mb of DRAM. 512K of L2 cache handle caching for up to 128Mb of RAM. "

So L2 Cache transmits data directly from your processor into RAM. The more L2 cache, the faster you can transmit data into RAM, because you can handle greater amounts of information.

I'm not sure the difference would create 2-3 MINUTES of difference however, there are definetly other factors to consider. One being the computer in your signature has run longer and probably has lots of data on it, and the one you just built is probably practically empty.