Question: L3 CPU cache and Logos 4

Keith Larson

I am thinking about upgrading one of my AMD desktops to better run Logos 4 and was wondering about whether or not L3 cache will make any difference with Logos 4. The new Athlon II X4's and X3's are a bargin, but their L3 cache has been disabled. The Phenom II's are not that much more expensive, but there is no need to spend extra money on something that will not add to the performance of the one program I use the most.

Daniel Lee

I am thinking about upgrading one of my AMD desktops to better run Logos 4 and was wondering about whether or not L3 cache will make any difference with Logos 4. The new Athlon II X4's and X3's are a bargin, but their L3 cache has been disabled. The Phenom II's are not that much more expensive, but there is no need to spend extra money on something that will not add to the performance of the one program I use the most.

I upgraded my desktop from an AMD 4000+ x2 (w/ 2x 512KB L2 cache) to an AMD 6000+ (2x 1MB L2 cache) and everything ran better.  I was wanting to go Phenom but I'd have to do a new power supply, motherboard, etc, so I skipped that route. 

I'm not how much performance improvement you'd see with L3 (ie a Phenom), but a lot of what I've seen indicates L3 cache helps a good bit with application performance, while the raw per-core processor numbers aren't as much improved between AMD Athlon x2, Athlon II x2, and Phenom.  (ie a Phenom on a single-core applicaiton would  be more like 20-30% faster than my processor even though it has 3-4 cores vs. my 2).  Hope that helps.