On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 02:52:57AM +0800, Joseph A. Dacuma wrote:

> SL3XM's L2 cache though less in size has its speed doubled compared to
> that of SL364 according to Intel. Therefore, _in theory_ you're better off
> with SL3XM and it uses less power (less heat?). But in practice, like web
> and mail, I don't think there would be a _dramatic_ difference in
> performance between the two processors.

I think, we can talk about "dramatic" difference in favor of (much) bigger
L2 cache.

I made a comparison between VIA-C3 700 MHz (128 KB L2 cache) and Pentium-II
400 Mhz (512 KB L2 cache). My experience is, that with VIA I cannot watch
AVI-files (MPlayer reports: "system is too slow to handle..."), while with
P-II/400 there is about 80-95% CPU utilization, but (mostly) not any
"framedrop". The tests were made under Linux.

So, to me it is kind of "dramatic" difference, when the "much slower" CPU
(almost 2 times slower!) in practice seems to be a bit faster.

Yes, I'm aware, that I cannot say "2 times slower" looking just at the
clock speed, that the direct comparison of two somewhat differently build
CPU-s cannot be precise, that (perhaps) doing integer operations, VIA could
be much faster... I didn't made any benchmarks, any "Eratosthenes sieves";
just looking at it from the user's side: I'm running some application, and
I'm wondering, when it seems to be any faster. Just because daily I'm not
using any "Eratosthenes sieves" (I guess).
-- 
				pozdrawiam / regards

						Zbigniew Baniewski