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> Each of the 2-8 main CPU cores (...) has its own private cache (bigger than most computers’ RAM up to even recently) That sounds odd. I take it the author is
by phoboslab 8y ago
> Each of the 2-8 main CPU cores (...) has its own private cache (bigger than most computers’ RAM up to even recently)
That sounds odd. I take it the author is not talking about the L1, L2 L3 caches, as they are typically only a few MB in size? So what is meant by this statement?
- beokop 8y agoI think he’s using the broader definition of computer in this case. Think microwaves etc.
- gwern 8y agoI remember when desktop computers had total RAM measured in single megabytes. It wasn't that long ago. (Get off my lawn, you kids!)
- glandium 8y agoSingle digit megabytes? Get off my lawn kid. I'm not that old but I remember when computers had total RAM measured in TWO digit KILObytes.
- marcosdumay 8y agoHe is talking about L1 and L2 caches. They usually use more area than the CPUs, even them being only a few MB in size.
- phoboslab 8y agoOh, so the physical size on the die, not the size in bytes. That makes sense!
- ttsiodras 8y agoActually, no - he meant the size in bytes. For example, my Digital Ocean droplet reports... # egrep '^(cache |model )' /proc/cpuinfo model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz cache size : 15360 KB To understand the context of the article's claim, let me just add that we used to make fun of Emacs people by saying the name stood for "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping". That was a time when a machine with 8MB was a big one. You can see above that machines nowadays have caches larger than that! And to compensate, we've now invented editors based on Javascript :-)