Which of the following misses can be reduced without changing
Which of the following misses can be reduced without changing the cache size.
i. conflict miss ii. Capacity miss iii. Compulsory miss
- A.
i and ii
- B.
i and iii
- C.
i, ii and iii
- D.
none of the above
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Correct answer: B
Answer: Conflict misses and compulsory (cold) misses can be reduced without changing the total cache size.
Conflict misses — can be reduced by increasing associativity or using a different placement policy. These changes alter how blocks are mapped to lines but do not require increasing the total cache capacity.
Capacity misses — depend on the total cache capacity (the number of bytes the cache can hold). Reducing capacity misses requires increasing the total cache size or reducing the working set, so they cannot generally be reduced without changing cache size.
Compulsory (cold) misses — can be reduced by increasing block (line) size so each miss brings more contiguous data (exploiting spatial locality). This can be done while keeping the overall cache capacity constant by decreasing the number of lines accordingly, so compulsory misses can be reduced without increasing total cache size.
Conclusion: Conflict and compulsory misses can be reduced without changing the total cache size; capacity misses cannot.