TroubledWhat is kinda funny is i do all of that stuff with ease too...and i dont have a Core i7. Go figure. You make it sound like you need a Core i7 to do all of the many things that a computer can do....when you don't really. I didnt really spend all that much on my video cards either. The Radeon 4670 isn't considered top of the line...but good enough to play the games that i play...Crysis, Far Cry 2, Need For Speed, and all the many other games that i play...along with the Zipping and Unzipping of files, dvd encoding and the many other things I do.

btarunrYes, like ShadowFold said, the past two flagship desktop dies are named after stars: Agena (aka Beta Centauri from constellation Centaurus), and Deneb (aka Alpha Cygni from constellation Cygnus). The naming has something to do with K10 "Stars" design.

TroubledOk...so a 5% increase with the 4mb Larger L3...but note...i did not say L3...i said L2. L3 runs at the speed of the NB...unlike the L2 which runs at HT Link Speed. What i am saying...is we have been at 512kb per core for a long time...it is time to bump that up a little bit. I am sure that you would see yet another boost in performance.

btarunrWell then look back and compare Athlon X2 Windosor-2M (1 MB L2 cache / core) to Windsor-1M (512 KB L2 /core). You'll find that the difference isn't much, and that with a mere 100 MHz increase in clock speed, whatever extra performance the additional cache provides is made up for. The boost in performance is not the cache's job. At the end of the day, your cache isn't crunching numbers. When there's a fast interconnect between the system and the processor, beyond a point, adding cache doesn't help. I think that point has already been reached.

And no. L2 cache is "full-speed" meaning it runs at CPU clock speed. Not "HT link speed". HT link actual clock-speed == NB clock speed.

TroubledI think you are referring to the Athlon X2 6000+ 2mb L2 Windsor which is 90nm core, Vs the Athlon X2 6000+ 1mb L2 Brisbane which is a 65nm core. Now...we all know that the 65nm core is a much better core and with the 100Mhz boost in not only the core speed, but also the cache speed that is what made up for the difference. Neither one of these processors feature an L3 Cache.

TroubledNow, let's bring this up to today's processors with L3, which as you have already stated run at the speed of the Northbridge. My Northbridge runs at 2.3ghz...this means that my L3 Cache only runs at 2.3Ghz. My Core Speeds are at 3.6Ghz, which means that my L2 Caches are also running at 3.6Ghz which i considerably faster. So...as I have said, having more of a faster L2 Cache would be a bit better.

I am not saying that Cache is going to make all the difference in the world, there are many other factors that are involved with a good processor...but every little bit helps. 5% may not seem like a lot, but when you are looking to squeeze every little ounce of power out of your processor....5% helps a lot.

btarunrNo, Brisbane is an optical die shrink of Windsor-1M, no changes.

btarunrOnce again, you're getting into the trivial "more/faster cache is better" argument. It really isn't for this architecture. Faster L3 cache would mean higher CPU/CPU-NB VID to support that speed. TDP takes a hit. Again, the impact of L3 cache is limited. AMD felt that 6 MB, 48-way cache is good enough for this architecture.

TroubledThe Athlon X2 6000+ came in Brisbane which was the 1M version, and the Windsor was the 2M version. The Cores were different on these processors.

TroubledIn case you haven't noticed, the Nahalem series is stomping the Deneb series. Maybe AMD doesn't have it "right" yet. As Intel prepares the 32nm Westmere AMD is still trying to perfect the 45nm Deneb. AMD is behind in the game. They need to do something to catch up and take the lead. There are several points to improve on, one of which could very well be in the cache...along with many other points of improvement such as the IMC which could support triple or quad channel, Chipsets which could operate more efficiently and several other factors which go into a high performance system.

btarunrRight, and the Brisbane chip was clocked a mere 100 MHz higher than the Windsor 2M. So all it took is a 100 MHz clock speed increase. Brisbane is an optical shrink of Windsor 1M. It's not one bit faster than Windsor-1M at constant clock-speed.

TroubledBased on that theory, the Kuma 7850 is slower than the Athlon X2 6000+...yet outperforms the 6000+ when overclocked to 3.0ghz (by simply bumping the CPU multiplier up by 1.)

btarunrRight, so you see, that 2 MB L3 cache and 3600 MT/s HyperTransport (on Kuma) is all the more useless now. It's on par with Windsor 2M clock for clock.

TroubledSo where are you getting that Cache doesn't matter?

btarunrFrom AMD stating that its 200% increase in L3 cache provides 5% performance uplift. In context of X2 550, you'll also see how a 5~8% overclock for an Athlon II X2 250 (that lacks L3 cache) places it on par with Phenom II X2 550. So really, the L3 cache while helpful, isn't something that you can keep increasing to get big performance gains beyond a point.

TroubledNot sure where you got that information. But an Athlon II 250 Overclocked to 3.9Ghz barely meets par with the Phenom II 550 @ 3.1ghz. Which last time i checked is a 30% overclock which would require a liquid cooling system. Evened up clocks...the Phenom II 550 outperforms the Athlon II 250 with ease. Now the Athlon II 250 is however on par with the Athlon X2 7850 at the same clock rate.

TroubledI will give you this much. At higher overclocks (approaching 4Ghz), the L3 cache doesn't make as much of a difference in such tasks as Video Encoding, raring and unraring, etc. But when it comes to Gaming performance, it seems to make a rather good size difference. 10fps may not seem like a big deal...but it could be the difference in a playable game and a paperweight in a box.

Now if you will notice at my first suggestion...it was to bump up the L2 a little. not the L3.

TroubledI think you are referring to the Athlon X2 6000+ 2mb L2 Windsor which is 90nm core, Vs the Athlon X2 6000+ 1mb L2 Brisbane which is a 65nm core. Now...we all know that the 65nm core is a much better core and with the 100Mhz boost in not only the core speed, but also the cache speed that is what made up for the difference.