• thelosers5o@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    20 hours ago

    Generally there’s a reverse relationship between size and speed. A 8gb cache would also be super slow thus defeating the purpose of the cache. If it were so easy every cpu would have a huge cache

    • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Not really, if you’re putting that size on the physical chip it will be fast because it’s close by. It’s just that we can’t fit that much on a chip now.

      • thelosers5o@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        Unfortunately that’s not how it works. This is coming from someone who studied computer hardware and software in university.

        Cache sizes are a trade off. Small cache means quick access speeds but higher chance of a cache miss. Larger caches have a lower access speed but a lower chance for a cache miss.

        This is why we have different levels of cache on a computer actually. It allows us to harness the benefits of the different sizes of caches without impacting the speed as much. With multiple layers we can have small caches that are super fast and then larger caches that are slower and so and so forth. This way we can have both speed and size.

        • MonkeMischief
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          14 hours ago

          For one, I’m just happy to see a hardware stat that isn’t rapidly and constantly enlarging for no other reason than being incrementally released to pressure constant sales.

          I mean it’s a small thing, but neat! I did wonder why cache sizes tended to stay small even between generations.

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours ago

          There’s nothing about being larger that makes access speed inherently slower. We just have to use cheaper technologies to improve density. CPU cache is usually SRAM, which is less dense than DRAM, but faster. 1GB of SRAM would be god tier. Even the Ryzen X3D chips only have 96MB of L3 cache, all SRAM, and those are sick.