[thanatos519]

This makes sense in general, because the caches are the most precious resource.

However, in my case the working set is small enough and the processes are top-priority so they probably stay in the L2 if not the L1. Also ... I want to keep using my desktop so I don't mind the intrusion of my interactive processes.

Hmm. Is there a way to check how much L1/L2/L3 a process is occupying?

[inetknght]

> in my case the working set is small enough and the processes are top-priority so they probably stay in the L2 if not the L1.

Maybe! Maybe not. If it's top priority on core X but something else with a much better (or cache-unfriendly) dataset is on the hyperthread-sibling core then your high priority process can still have cache misses.

[jeffbee]

No, but it is possible on certain top-end Intel SKUs to partition the last-level caches such that they are effectively reserved to certain processes.

[wmf]

pqos?

[jeffbee]

Even RDT isn't going to give you insight into L1 occupancy.