Which eviction policy is most suitable when temporal locality dominates, while long-term frequency is less important?

• A. LFU is always better than LRU in all workloads.
• B. LRU and LFU are equivalent; eviction policy does not matter.
• C. LRU is advantageous when temporal locality dominates, while LFU is good for stable long-term frequency.
• D. LFU always outperforms LRU for all patterns.

Answer: (C)

Temporal locality means items used recently are likely to be used again soon. An eviction policy that emphasizes recency keeps those recently used items in cache and evicts the least recently used ones, making LRU a good fit in this scenario. LFU, by contrast, focuses on long-term access frequency and can cling to items that were popular in the past even if they’re no longer useful, so it adapts more slowly to changes in workload. Because the question states that long-term frequency is less important, the recency-based approach of LRU is preferable. The idea that LFU is always better or that the two policies are equivalent ignores how workloads can shift and how recency can drive more effective caching in bursts.