How important is on-board cache for Oracle?

In determining what type of processors to use in my server, I need to determine just how much actual use the on-board cache would get used while running a typical Oracle/Webserver software system - so I can determine how much cache I should get.

There will be many, many very similar DB requests - but most going to seperate areas of the database (repeated request types - different data).

Will the increased cache (say, like 1-2Mb on board) really still prevent a lot of disk accesses (and thus DB accesses)? How could I quantify this? I know that the caching is done at the processor instruction-set level of data, so how could I begin to assess how much cache could actually get used by various types of software systems?

Any help is much appreciated.

NOTE: all references I made to "cache" refer to the on-board cache closest to processor. Received on Mon Dec 06 1999 - 11:21:00 CST