This project seeks to determine and understand the effects of CPU speed, cache & memory on computer performance, which will make computer buyers more knowledgeable about the best purchases and upgrades for them. My hypothesis was that CPU speed has the greatest effect on the computer performance.
I did the experiment using PII 233MHz, 512KB cache and 384MB RAM Computer (C1), PII 266MHz, 256KB cache and 320MB RAM Computer (C2), PIV 2Ghz (Celeron), 256MB RAM Computer (C3), PIV 2GHz, 512KB cache and 256MB RAM Computer (C4), TestCPU software package available from http://WWW.FI.MUNI.CZ/~XSMID4, and the Benchmark software written in Pascal by me.
I performed the TestCPU program on all computers (C1, C2, C3, C4) and noted the time taken to do the five different types of tests based on different types of calculation methods and also noted the values of the Dhrystones, Whetstones, MIPS, and MFLOPS. I also performed the benchmark test written by me on all the computers and noted the results. Then I repeated all these tests and noted the results for computers C1 and C2 but once with disabled cache, then with reduced RAM and enabled cache and finally with reduced RAM and disabled cache.
After the experiment, I graphed and analyzed the data, which showed that the increase in all the three parameters i.e. Cache, CPU speed & memory size are directly proportional to the increase in the computer performance. But I reached at the conclusion that the increase in Cache increased the computer performance the most compared to the increase in CPU speed and increase in memory.