System and method embodiments are provided for coordinated hardware and software performance monitoring to determine a suitable polling time for memory cache during run time. The system and method adapt to the time-varying software workload by determining a next polling time based on captured local characteristics of memory access pattern over time. The adaptive adjustment of polling time according to system performance and dynamic software workload allows capturing more accurately the local characteristics of memory access pattern. An embodiment method includes capturing, at a current polling instance, hardware performance parameters to manage the memory cache, and adjusting a time interval for a next polling instance according to the hardware performance parameters. The captured hardware performance parameters are used to compute performance metrics, which are then used to determine the time interval for the next polling instance.