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Are CPU registers and CPU cache different?
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The cache memory stores all the frequently used data and instructions of a device in it. Thus, it speeds up the overall performance and process of the computer. The register, on the other hand, only holds a piece of info, such as a computer instruction or the storage address of any particular information, etc.
CPU register is always faster than the L1 cache. It is the closest. The difference is roughly a factor of 3. Trying to make this as intuitive as possible without getting lost in the physics underlying the question: there is a simple correlation between speed and distance in electronics.
Processor registers are normally at the top of the memory hierarchy, and provide the fastest way to access data. The term normally refers only to the group of registers that are directly encoded as part of an instruction, as defined by the instruction set.
Yes, CPU register is just a small amount of data storage, that facilitates some CPU operations.
CPU cache, it is a high speed volatile memory which is bigger in size, that helps the processor to reduce the memory operations.
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It is not very inaccurate to think of the processor's register as the level 0 cache, smaller and faster than the other layers of cache in-between the processor and memory. The difference is only that from the point of view of the instruction set, cache access is transparent (the cache is accessed through a memory address that happens to be a cached address at the moment) whereas registers are explicitly referenced in each instruction.
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