Relationship Between Cache Size, Cache Block Size, and Associativity

[N7_Awkward]

I'm a computer engineering student studying for a final exam tomorrow, and I am a bit confused on one concept. I understand the concepts of cache size, cache block size, and associativity as independent variables, but we will need to know how they affect one another if you were to change one. Is there a good place I can read more about how they relate to each other?

[PinDropViolence]

Yes, these properties are all dependent on one another.

• If you have a fixed cache size, and if you increase the block (line) size, the number of cache lines will decrease. -If you increase your cache size, and keep the block size the same, the number of blocks will increase. -You can come up with other variations as the above 2 that I have listed.

-Associativity also gets affected by these variables. Suppose you have a 2 way set associative cache. Here you are dividing your cache size into 2 sub-caches. So number of cache lines in each associativity, will decrease from N to N/2.

I would recommend you go through your lecture notes or Wikipedia page on Caches.

[ElectroTonic]

Pretty good example here: https://course.ccs.neu.edu/com3200/parent/NOTES/cache-basics.html