Capacity Misses: when the cache is too small and when it is full
Conflict Misses: when the cache has mapping scheme constraints (eviction in direct or set associative)
Higher miss rate when the block size is too small (not enough data per access) or too large (time spent getting data I wouldn't use, and it takes up space that will prevent other data)
Larger cache size reduces capacity misses
High associativity reduces conflict misses. At reasonable cache sizes, associativity above K=2 or 4โway does not improve much.
Smith, Allan J. Disk Cache โ Miss Ratio Analysis and Design Considerations. 1985