A1013? Advantages of having L3 cache

theMarble

New Tinkerer
Nov 7, 2021
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Planet Earth
Hi all,

So I wanted to know how big the difference in everyday performance is with L3 cache on a 1GHz 17" (A1013) compared to another 17" without L3. I have both a Ti867 w/ L3 and 2 1GHz Al's (12" and 15") and I can't tell much of a difference in speed.

What are the advantages to having L3 cache on a PowerBook?
 

Certificate of Excellence

Active Tinkerer
Nov 1, 2021
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Well, I’ve read about a number of folks online who have continued to use their powerbooks post L3 failure without much issue other than slower performance as the L2 loses the extra space to store instructions <— that is the benefit, support of the L1&2; more space to store cpu instruction sets. L3 is especially advantageous for multi cpu/core computers but that doesn’t really apply for a something like a single g4 7455 in a powerbook.
 
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dronecatcher

New Tinkerer
Oct 28, 2021
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Although I have no benchmarks to verify it, I suspect a large L2/L3 really helps on CPU based video decoding - when I had a G3 Powerbook with it's 1Mb L2 cache, it seemed to perform far better than it's 400Mhz CPU would've suggested.
 

Certificate of Excellence

Active Tinkerer
Nov 1, 2021
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Although I have no benchmarks to verify it, I suspect a large L2/L3 really helps on CPU based video decoding - when I had a G3 Powerbook with it's 1Mb L2 cache, it seemed to perform far better than it's 400Mhz CPU would've suggested.
Oh my, it's too early for benchmarks I just poured my first cup of coffee. :D

And hello. 👋 You're the first MR regular I've seen over here other than FogWraith that I recognize. I agree with you. I bet for some cpu intensive tasks like music production, no L3 would cripple speed - for daily driver tasks, not so much.
 
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