> I am working on a old AST Advantage PRO 486DX33 with 16 megs of RAM. I am
> thinking about  upgrading it to a Linux Box for a specific job
> but there is
> one issue. The old Advantage Pro and Bravos were very proprietary and did
> not normally come with an L2 cache....there was a special plug in circuit
> board that was available as an upgrade but now of course this would not be
> available.  The lack of a L2 cache makes for a performance hit but I can't
> remember just how big. I am thinking of upgrading to 32 megs of RAM and a
> DX4100 but something in my memory tells me that without the L2 cache it
> won't be able to benefit from the additional RAM and the Megahertz in an
> efficient manner.
>
> Does anybody remember any hard data as to performance with or without a L2
> cache on a 486 ?

     From what I have experienced L2 cache does not supply as huge a
performance boost as people tend to believe. At higher clock speeds where
the core runs 4 or 5 times the speed of the memory bus L2 certainly becomes
more important (in cases where the L2 runs at either core or close to core
speeds) but in 486 class machines L2 cache has never in my experience
supplied more than about a 5 to 10% boost. L1 cache is much more important.
Now again, it does depend, some tasks benefit from L2 more than others. A
lack of L2 cache will not impede the additional performance of additional
RAM and processing speed. I myself ran a 486DX4/120 (overclocked from 100)
with 16MB and it "managed" win95 OK, not stellar but usable as a backup
system. I have found that Linux is very good at getting every last bit of
performance out of a machine. While X might be a little sluggish on that
machine I am sure that it will run quite well. If you forgo X it will fly
pretty well. Good luck, TTYL

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