PCTuning fórum

The L3 is a write-back cache populated by L2 victims. When there is an L3 hit, the line is invalidated from the L3 if the access was a store. It is invalidated from the L3 if the access was a load and the line was read by just one core. It stays valid in the L3 if it was a code fetch. It stays valid in the L3 if it was a load and the line has been read by more than one core. The L3 maintains shadow tags for each L2 cache in the complex. If a core misses in its local L2 and also in the L3, the shadow tags are consulted. If the shadow tags indicate that the data resides in another L2 within the complex, a cache-to-cache transfer is initiated within the complex.