How much Processing speed and Cache is sufficient ....

IF ...

Someone wants to get a laptop for just downloading images, music, watching movies or online content (such as news, etc.) and working heavily on MS-Word and Excel?

Please list your Choices like this:

Maximum - (Cpu model/speed) and Cache
Minimum - (Cpu model/speed) and Cache


I am struck with the Cache part, as i dont know how much cache should be sufficient for the above and if one chooses to go beyond as well.

and also if someone can explain its function in simple words...

 

Minimum: Any CPU manufactured in the last 3 years.
Maximum: The cheapest CPU you can find.

Cache doesn't matter. Or rather, it doesn't matter as a separate entity.
More cache just makes some things go a bit faster. A good rule of thumb is that twice the cache means 10% more overall performance.

But anyway, unless you have some very specific needs (games, primarily), *any* computer will be fast enough for you.

 

What is the primary function of the cache in this regard?

and thanks for getting back to this one.

 

1ST you can not compare AMD vs Intel evenly on L2 cache, AMD does better with less , so of course AMD has less. In all honesty for what you ask for you can not buy a notebook that can't handle it. I mean if you want to save money you can buy one at BestBuy for $400-$500. Repost, what do you reallly want to know.

Edit: I type slow should of been 1ST!

 

what you think is the max cpu speed / cache i would need for what i listed in the thread and how the cache wud play its role in achieving all that

 

i would suggest getting a low end core2duo just to be future proof... maybe a T5270/T5470 or whatever the weird naming is now... 1.5 or 1.6ghz.
if you get a piece of crap sempron or celeron you'll probably have to upgrade sooner than you'd like... unless you plan on running XP and Office 2000 forever...

 

as long as its dual core AMD or Intel processors do too much you cannot possibly max it out with what your going to use it for. lol this thread is soo 1995 where processors speed really did matter hahahaha

 

As Jalf said any CPU made in the last 3 years will work. I might go so far as 5 years but not worth disscusing insofar as you are not going on the used market? 1Ghz 512L2 would be overkill for what you need! So maybe a P4.

 

does anyone care about battery life at all? Go with the lowest-end Core 2 duo and you'll be fine. I don't know why they've named those processors in such weird way, neither do I know their weird clock speed or cache amount, but any core 2 duo would do.

 

No we don't! It is A very Good point! But no we did not ask, do you think if he had I would of recommended a P4?

 

Any current cpu will do this fine. Current cpus are Celeron-M, AMD Sempron, AMD Turion and Turion X2, Pentium Dual Core, Core Solo, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo. I'd recommend a Pentium Dual Core or low end (1.4-1.66GHz) Core 2 Duo or a Turion X2 for your needs. I wouldn't worry about cache or any of that, it's largely irrelevant for your usage.

What I wouldn't do is get anything more powerful than a Core 2 Duo T7250 as you won't need that kind of power and it'll be a waste of money. If you are getting a machine with Windows Vista you should aim for 2GB ram, any current graphics solution will handle that fine, although an IGP will give you better battery life than a dedicated graphics card which you don't need. IGPs to look out for are Intel GMA950/965/X3100, ATi X1150/X1250 and Nvidia Geforce go 6150 and 7150M.

 

Speeding up the CPU.
You might as well ask what the primary function is of the specific design of the ALU's, or the number of them, or the length of the CPU's pipeline, or the cache bandwidth, or the size of the branch predict buffers, or....

The CPU is full of fancy features that makes common tasks go just a bit faster. The cache is just one of them. That's why I said don't look at the cache in isolation, it doesn't make sense. A smaller cache can be compensated for by a slight improvement in any of the other areas. (although the only one that typically varies within one CPU type is the clock speed)

So basically, don't look at the cache size in isolation. All that matters is overall performance, and that can be achieved in lots of different ways. Higher clockspeed but smaller cache works just as well as lower clockspeed and larger cache.

If you want a more technical answer, the cache simply stores a copy of the data most recently loaded from RAM. That is, the most recent code (instructions), and the most recent data. The reason is that recently used data has a very high probability of being needed again soon. And if that happens, it can be fetched from the CPU cache instead of RAM, which is quite a bit faster.
Obviously, the bigger the cache is, the more recently used data it can store, which means the CPU won't have to access RAM as often.
However, the hit rate is *very* high even with a smallish cache. With current cache sizes, something like 99% of all memory accesses can be resolved by looking in the cache. Only the last 1% has to go out to RAM. So there's only limited room for improvement by doubling the cache size (might get you from 99% to 99.2% hit rate, for example).
Overall, the performance impact is smallish, but not so small as to be pointless. But it can easily be traded for a higher clock speed.