What’s on the Memory Hierarchy poster
A 8-row table: Level · Real time · If a cycle were 1s.
Approximate latencies, scaled so one CPU cycle is one second.
- Register — ~0.3 ns — 1 second
- L1 cache — ~1 ns — 3 seconds
- L2 cache — ~4 ns — 13 seconds
- L3 cache — ~15 ns — 1 minute
- RAM — ~100 ns — 5 minutes
- SSD — ~100 µs — 4 days
- Network (same DC) — ~500 µs — 3 weeks
- Disk seek — ~10 ms — 1 year
Sequential access is far faster than random at every level. That is why arrays usually beat linked lists in practice.
Questions about the Memory Hierarchy poster
- What’s on the Memory Hierarchy poster?
- A 8-row table: Level · Real time · If a cycle were 1s. Approximate latencies, scaled so one CPU cycle is one second. Register — ~0.3 ns — 1 second; L1 cache — ~1 ns — 3 seconds; L2 cache — ~4 ns — 13 seconds; L3 cache — ~15 ns — 1 minute; RAM — ~100 ns — 5 minutes; SSD — ~100 µs — 4 days; Network (same DC) — ~500 µs — 3 weeks; Disk seek — ~10 ms — 1 year. Sequential access is far faster than random at every level. That is why arrays usually beat linked lists in practice.
- Who is the Memory Hierarchy poster for?
- Memory Hierarchy belongs to the Computing section rather than to a school year, because computing is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning systems can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Memory Hierarchy poster?
- Each level down is roughly ten to a hundred times slower. That gap is why caches exist. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Memory Hierarchy belongs on the wall where that computing work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Memory Hierarchy?
- Caching, Concurrency & Parallelism and DNS sit alongside Memory Hierarchy in the Computing section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.CachingConcurrency & ParallelismDNS
- Is the Memory Hierarchy poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Memory Hierarchy downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Computing section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Memory Hierarchy poster print at?
- Memory Hierarchy is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Memory Hierarchy loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Memory Hierarchy on the same wall.
Browse every Computing poster, or start from the full catalogue.