Windows L2 Cache Size.....

This is often an overlooked feature that usually optimised, however you can be preventing your system your system performing to its full by leaving this value set as default....bear in mind that the default value needs to be compatiable with ALL computers systems on the market!


Integrated L2 cache resulted in considerably improved performance across virtually all applications. The performance impact even is significant enough to say that L2 cache is the most important performance factor on an x86 microprocessor. Disabling the L2 cache will reduce system performance more than disabling a second CPU core of a dual-core processor.


If you have a Intel Quad Core Processor QX6850 clocked at 3Ghz then you wil have 4096MB of L2 Cache for all the cores to use, this begs the question why is the default value set very low in windows as shown below:
windowsl2_cache_1
Right, so Windows L2 cache size is set 3854KB (3.854MB) lower in Windows, this needs to be ammended to reflect the true value, as L2 caculations become critical if you have a resource intensive application, so let us set this value to the correct value...
windowsl2_cache_2
If you are into overclocking your computer system then this tweak will drastically improve your"synthetic" benchmark scores if you have a CPU that has a larger L2 cache size then 512KB....if you use a Celeron or a P4 standard then you cannot benefit from this tweak!