Intel provides some indication of how its
Xeon processor performance varies with
L2 cache size on its Xeon Server
Performance page, linked to our
Vendor Benchmarks. As of this writing, only their Xeon
Pentium-II 450MHz is featured, and performs something like this:
Xeon II 450 (L2: 1MB)
486 transactions/second
Xeon II 450 (L2: 2MB)
536 t/s = 10% faster
A good source for specific cache-related benchmarks is SPEC,
the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, also linked to our Independent
Benchmarks page. SPEC is a non-profit organisation that provides
standardised benchmarks to approved members, in an attempt to obtain
useful cross-platform server performance results. SPEC's long-held CPU95
test suite has now been replaced by their newer CPU2000 benchmark
software. However, being newer, fewer CPU2000 results have as yet been
submitted by SPEC members, and no Xeon performance tests have been
published. Still, from the wealth of the older CPU95 test results, the
following can be shown about Xeon cache performance:
While the CPU95 benchmark tests are divided into integer and
floating-point suites, we have averaged both results here to rate your
processors of interest. The score bars have been normalised, based on the
Xeon II 450 (1MB) performance shown above. The stated speed improvements
are based only on cache size:
Xeon III 550 (L2: 512kB)
Xeon III 550 (L2: 1024kB)
4% faster
Xeon III 700 (L2: 1024kB)
Xeon III 700 (L2: 2048kB)
12% faster
And because you requested it, we will endeavour to include more
cache-related benchmark scores on our CPU
Scorecard from now on.
