[*] Crt monitor
NOS ADI MicroScan V57, 15" 1280x1024

[*] AT computer case
NOS - NoName

[*] Motherboard
UC 4913

[*] Memory
4x4MB new made 30pin memory from Tiido at Amibay

[*] CD-rom
NOS Nec CDR-C251 4x4 CD Changer

[*] Soundcard
NOS oem Creative AWE 64 gold

[*] Disk tray
NOS - NoName

Holder 2

tabm0de wrote on 2020-11-17, 12:41:

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• CPU
  - I am not sure yet what to use, i have unboxed ODPR dx2 66 or ODPR pentium 83 for socket 3.
• Video card
  - Ordered a new oem Tseng Labs ET4000AX ISA, yes isa, new Tseng VLB is hard to find nor do I think it will be cheep if they do appear on ebay 😁
• Floppy
  - New sony 3.5" drive, sadly white but i might just change the front if i found a good match. no need for 5.25" for now but i do have a slot to fill out..
• Harddrive
  - Bulk of 5 41.1GB ide drives brand new from 2005, to much space which won't be used but at least its not ide to cf.

• The Pentium OD 83 is far superior. The only reason to use the DX2-66 would be to deliberately make a period accurate machine for a very specific year, like 1993.
• If you use an ISA video card, you're knee-capping this beautiful system. Why oh why would you do that to yourself. I understand you're looking for NOS parts, but a used motherboard with PCI slots instead of VLB would enable you to use extremely cheap PCI video cards, which would give you the pinnacle of 486-class performance.
• Replacement floppy drive bezels are available online - at least to make the drive black or aluminum. I bet someone on these boards would be able to provide a beige bezel if that's what you need; especially if you make a post just for that.
• If you're comfortable using a hard drive from 10 years after all of the other parts were made, why not make your life vastly easier and use a SD IDE adapter. More reliable, cheaper, and faster.
• Don't you want a network card? If you're stuck with ISA and no PCI, you should consider a highly compatible card like a 3c509 (10baseT), 3c515 (10/100), AMD Lance / PCnet, or Intel EtherExpress. (VLB Ethernet cards are extremely rare.)

Going from a 486dx2-66 to 486dx4-100 is not much of a performance gain.
Maybe 10% at best.

But going to an Intel pentium overdrive at 83 is a BIG performance gain over the 486dx4-100.

But then it’s NO longer a 486 computer.

So it depends on if you want a 486 computer or best DOS gaming computer in which case a Pentium MMX 233mhz computer would be better.

So for a 486 computer a 486dx2-66 or 486dx4-100 would be okay in DOS and Win3.11 but NOT for Win95 in which case a Pentium CPU is recommended.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-17, 16:00:

Going from a 486dx2-66 to 486dx4-100 is not much of a performance gain. Maybe 10% at best. […]
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Going from a 486dx2-66 to 486dx4-100 is not much of a performance gain.
Maybe 10% at best.

But going to an Intel pentium overdrive at 83 is a BIG performance gain over the 486dx4-100.

But then it’s NO longer a 486 computer.

So it depends on if you want a 486 computer or best DOS gaming computer in which case a Pentium MMX 233mhz computer would be better.

So for a 486 computer a 486dx2-66 or 486dx4-100 would be okay in DOS and Win3.11 but NOT for Win95 in which case a Pentium CPU is recommended.

No, all of that is pretty much wrong and/or misleading. The jump from a DX2-66 to a DX4-100 is much more noticeable than the difference between a DX4 and the POD... only for stuff that benefits from the better NPU on the Pentium there would be a clear advantage for the POD (such as Quake), but those will pretty much suck on any 486 platform, even with an Overdrive.

A 486 will be fine for most games up to around 1995, the SVGA titles from the later DOS years are what benefit the most of using a Pentium CPU. So it really depends on what the OP is interested in.

And Win95 should be OK on a 486, unless you have a low amount of RAM, which is not a problem these days.

Thanks the comments!
It is always nice to get input from others 😀

After considering I will probably be running the dx2 66, since I am after running slower dos/win 3.1 games on it and not games like Duke3d.

My other build will be a p2/3 which I will run dos/win95/98 games 2d/3d voodoo that requires better speed, i know it would be possible to use that computer for the same games that will run on the 486 computer but at the same time it is my first "own" build of a 486 and not a branded 486 purchases hehe

Regarding VLB i always been interested to see which dos games that do have the recommendation of cpu "dx2 66/ dx4 100" that would run smoother with a VLB vga card instead of a standard ISA card.
I would say i dont know much about VLB except i know it is faster the standard ISA.

Regarding not using CF is because of the nostalgic of hearing the sound of a hard drive spinning up and working 😀 i do run cf on other computer builds but there is something about hearing the sound of a drive, same goes for gotek floppy drives, there is no fun when you cant hear the "real" sound ( since i know there is a speaker mod ) of a floppy when it reads and writes 😀

sweet build! i am jealous of the new CRT and case.

CRT package looking extra dandy.