dirkmirk wrote:

When I was browsing through that 500 page of monstrosity magazine its amazing the price difference between a DX-33 and a DX2-66. […]
Show full quote

When I was browsing through that 500 page of monstrosity magazine its amazing the price difference between a DX-33 and a DX2-66.

Correct me if Im wrong but I feel like a smart/value purchase in those days would have been...

486 DLC40 - If you could get a hybrid 386/486 board this would make the most sense as you could later upgrade to a proper 486.
4meg ram? - assuming its somewhat a gaming machine, your using dos what needed 8meg in 1992? Perhaps memory management knowledge and drivers were so crude it made more sense to have 8meg? You've saved money on the cpu at least.
512K isa non accelerated 2d card, ie et4000, for the average person how much time did you actually spend in windows to take advantage of the 2d acceleration? eilanda did a comaparison with on local bus vs isa and the isa card keeps up to speed on a 486DX33, vlb card a waste of money for this system.

Thats the core of the system and it would play Doom well at the end of 1993 a year later not sure if many games would really challenge it until 1994? by that time a 486DX2-66 would be much cheaper or if you put up with it until 95 you could buy a 5x86 cpu for a good boost to keep the machine going... It would have hard to guage what was a good time to upgrade as computers were changing so fast its unbelievable, by 1998 some 6 years later a budget cpu was a celeron 333mhz nearly 10 times the speed of the dlc40.

The 386-486 upgrade chips either fit in 386 sockets or were soldered directly to the motherboard. You could not put a 486SX or DX in them later on. You would have needed a motherboard that had both a 386 socket and Socket 3 and if you're going to do that then just forget about the 386 socket and get a straight 486 motherboard.

Your mistaken

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/U/UN … ml#.Uh8DhJIwdN9

I had this mainboard but it didn't work, if you look closely the 386 socket actually says 386 pga/486 dlc and you can clearly see the 486DX-33 bolted to the board.

So if you had this system in 1992 their would have been nothing stopping you slotting in a 5x86 upgrade kit except the fact it has 30pin ram which probably made it an unviable system, that being said if you had 8meg of ram from the start it would have been a decent dos gaming machine around 95.

edit: The point of my post was a value system in 1992, this would have been cheaper than a 486DX-33 and had similar performance with the option to upgrade it later, the 386DX40 was widely available but mostly a dead end platform, that being said I dont know what year that mainboard would have appeared.

Here is another board

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/E/EF … ml#.Uh8G0ZIwdN8

dirkmirk wrote:

Your mistaken http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd361/dirkmirk/IMG_2451_bd4fb4d1bb551d28eeef6ea_zps9815e70d.jpg http://stason. […]
Show full quote

Your mistaken

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/U/UN … ml#.Uh8DhJIwdN9

I had this mainboard but it didn't work, if you look closely the 386 socket actually says 386 pga/486 dlc and you can clearly see the 486DX-33 bolted to the board.

So if you had this system in 1992 their would have been nothing stopping you slotting in a 5x86 upgrade kit except the fact it has 30pin ram which probably made it an unviable system, that being said if you had 8meg of ram from the start it would have been a decent dos gaming machine around 95.

edit: The point of my post was a value system in 1992, this would have been cheaper than a 486DX-33 and had similar performance with the option to upgrade it later, the 386DX40 was widely available but mostly a dead end platform, that being said I dont know what year that mainboard would have appeared.

Here is another board

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/E/EF … ml#.Uh8G0ZIwdN8

Please point out where I am mistaken. Did I ever say such boards did not exist? No, I did not. In fact, I specifically stated that you would have needed a motherboard with two CPU sockets to do what you suggested. Please brush up on your reading comprehension.

I get what your saying, you cant put a 486 in a 386 socket but it made no sense in the discussion we were having, my point was buying a hybrid board with a cheap 486 DLC and upgrading it later, sure would have made more sense than buying a 486DX-33 or 486DX2-66 but I have no idea when these boards were available so it could be a pointless point im trying to argue, they might have more a 1993 type of thing.

I have a couple of those OPTi boards and not hat this means much, but they came from systems built in '93 and '94.

The 486SX 33 was a much cheaper alternative to the DX, and there was no real world dissadvantage for the average user. What a great Intel scam that was.

badmojo wrote:

I have a couple of those OPTi boards and not hat this means much, but they came from systems built in '93 and '94.

The 486SX 33 was a much cheaper alternative to the DX, and there was no real world dissadvantage for the average user. What a great Intel scam that was.

Putting the FPU on the chip allowed motherboard manufacturers to simplify their designs, so even if you were a 486SX user and had no software that took advantage of the presence of an FPU, you still benefited because your motherboard could be made a little cheaper than it could otherwise if it had a FPU socket and supporting circuitry and components onboard. The ones who really got shafted were the ones who bought systems that had a 486SX soldered in and a 487 socket next to it who later purchased a 487 chip. They basically paid for two CPU's since the 487 was actually a full blown 486DX with the only difference being a single pin to turn off the original CPU.