🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MPG.1148ef176b46cee6989681@news.melbpc.org.au>,
Factory <faqtori@hotmail.com> wrote:
>  The caching on the psx2 was fairly unimpressive too, it had a 8k/16k 
>instruction/data cache and 16k scratchpad mem, no mention was made of any 
>other forms of caching. Considering that the current low end pentium 
>class chips have much more caching, I do not doubt that the merced 
>processors will have better caching.
>  If those specs are roughly right (I'm doing this from memory..) I would 
>expect the merced to out perform the psx2's cpu in real world work.

   Caching is most important when the internal bandwidth of the CPU is
significantly faster than the external memory bandwidth. If you've got
a very good memory throughput system, you don't need half as much
cache.  With a nice wide (128 bit? more?) rambus setup, you can shovel
in huge amouts of data into the processor nearly as fast as it wants.

   Remember, in consoles, they can design nice fat busses to shovel
around more data, while PCs tend to be more limited in their memory
i/o setups due to compatability reasons. 

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates - personal webpage http://www.visi.com/~nathan/  
# Network Programmer, Battlezone 2: see http://www.pandemicstudios.com
# NOT speaking for Pandemic Studios or Activision, ONLY myself
# "What are the facts, and to how many decimal places?" -R.A. Heinlein