Memory management
The main memory contains the program data
- Cache memory contains a copy of the main memory data
- Cache is faster but consumes more space and power. It is normally assumed to be much faster than main memory
- Registers contain working data only
- Modern CPUs perform most or all operations only on data in register
- Multiple Cache memories contain a copy of the main memory data
- Cache items accessed by their address in main memory
- L1 cache is the fastest but has the least capacity
- L2, L3 provide intermediate performance/size tradeoffs
Loads and stores to memory can be as important as floating point operations when we measure performance.