Memory hierarchy: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:50, 12 February 2006

Revision as of 07:13, 15 February 2006

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The memory hierarchy in most computers is as follows:

* [[Processor register]]s – fastest possible access,ususally in(usually 1 CPU cycle. But), only hundreds of bytes in size

* Level 1 (L1) [[CPU cache|cache]] – often accessed in just a few cycles, usually tens of kilobytes

* Level 2 (L2) [[CPU cache|cache]] – higher latency than L1 by 2× to 10×, often 512KB or more

* Level 3 (L3) [[CPU cache|cache]] – (optional) higher latency than L2, often multiple MB's

* [[Primary storage|Main memory]] ([[DRAM]]) – may take hundreds of cycles, but can be multiple gigabytes.

* [[Disk storage]] – hundreds of thousands of cycles latency, but very large

==Management ==