A technique for determining whether a register value should be written to an operand cache or whether the register value should remain in and not be evicted from the operand cache is provided. The technique includes executing an instruction that accesses an operand that comprises the register value, performing one or both of a lookahead technique and a prediction technique to determine whether the register value should be written to an operand cache or whether the register value should remain in and not be evicted from the operand cache, and based on the determining, updating the operand cache.