As expected using
three bits suffices to limit the number of ways needed to be
looked up to only a single one, since our first-level cache has 8
ways, therefore allowing the consumption of a set-associative
cache that uses this mechanism to be similar to that of a
direct-mapped cache. There is no high difference in the results
obtained between the different applications for a same number
of tag bits. Notice that, it is possible to have an average number
of ways accessed lesser than 1. It might happen that the least
significant bits of the tag address have no match in the tag
array. In this case, no way has to be accessed and the cache
miss is triggered a bit earlier than it would be. This explains
the results obtained for four bits.