cache : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1997-2009 Canadian Mind Products
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cache

Cache four meanings. It comes from the French cacher to hide.

L1 on-chip cache: Primary cache. Some extremely high speed RAM built right into the CPU chip to keep copies of the most frequently used items in regular RAM. It might be in the order of 512K to 1 GB.
L2 static RAM cache: Secondary cache. Some high speed static RAM on the motherboard to keep the most frequently used items, in chips separate from the CPU. Now rare. In modern machines, the L2 cache may also be on the CPU chip.
L3 static RAM cache: Tertiary cache. Some high speed static RAM on the motherboard to keep the most frequently used items, in chips separate from the CPU. This is usually large, expensive, and rare.
disk cache: Some ordinary RAM used by the operating system to keep the most frequently used item on disk. This gives much faster access.

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