Have a look at my galleries showing important 486 mainboards.
Some are easier to find, some are hardly to come by.
You will see, it is not easy to find one that meets all your needs.

http://www.abload.de/gallery.php?key=arlqIpxO
http://www.abload.de/gallery.php?key=loNKV3E7

Here is a good list of PCI socket 3 boards:
http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-96.html

As they say on that site, be wary of PCCHIPS fake cache boards. I actually own the M919 and what they say is pretty accurate. Performance is ok but it is prone to errors and lockups.

Also with the 8GB disk you may have issues - I believe DOS 6.22 and earlier will only work with <4GB drives - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335 - you may have to setup your drive's CHS settings to top limit the drive to 4GB. I also found that some 486 BIOSes won't support disks larger than 4GB either.

Yeah, I have a M912 with fake cache chips, if possible try to stay away from PCChips stuff... at least for their 486/Pentium boards.

I don't think DOS 6.22 will have problems with >4GB drives, but you'll have the limit imposed by the FAT16 filesystem of 2GB per partition. Maybe you'll have problems with 8GB drives, but that comes from the mainboard BIOS limitation, not the OS. I am right ?

The DOS 6.22 fdisk partition size limit is 2GB, but there is/was a tool that could create and format 4GB partitions.

BastlerMike wrote:

http://www.abload.de/gallery.php?key=arlqIpxO
http://www.abload.de/gallery.php?key=loNKV3E7

Nice Galleries! 😁

Asus PVI-486SP3
(Yes, I'm aware that every time someone mentions this board on these forums, its price goes up 10€ on ebay. 😉)

BTW, PCI speed on 486 boards is not really that important, especially if you use a 66 MHz CPU.

ACSK why the need for speed when you are looking for 486 hardware? Might as well get a Pentium with AGP and decent PCI?

For your interest we have a benchmark list on this forum, focusing on DOS Gaming performance: 3DBENCH CPU Benchmark Database

There are a ton of 486 results. The PCI boards are definetely popular on VOGONS 😀 Just avoid using an ISA card in a 486. Kills the performance...

I can't really spot a PCI result that stands out as slow or anything like that...

Sorry for the little thread hijack, but does someone happen to have a Zida Tomato 4DPS 486 board ? I have one and was looking for this unofficial 4.01e BIOS release. 1.72f seems to be the latest official release, which I have. Does someone happen to have it ?

BIOS source: http://www.rom.by/forum/Plata_4DPS_Ver_2_11
Board photo: http://retropages.uw.hu/Gepek/Alkatreszek/Alaplapok/4DPS.jpg

I don't think DOS 6.22 will have problems with >4GB drives, but you'll have the limit imposed by the FAT16 filesystem of 2GB per partition. Maybe you'll have problems with 8GB drives, but that comes from the mainboard BIOS limitation, not the OS. I am right ?

Not sure exactly... I had one motherboard that I tried to install a 4.3GB drive in. The BIOS picked it up alright but DOS6.22 FDISK 'wrapped around' and only saw about 300MB. For all I know it mighth be something funny in the BIOS.
I manually set the CHS parameters so it was 4GB and FDISK was happy then.

Yeah, now I understand what you meant. I also had that problems, but only happened on certain boards, other boards worked ok. Seems there were something in the BIOS acting up.

Wow, tons of good information. Glad I'm running my build by you guys.

I only care about PCI performance because I heard it created problems with some cards. I will be using a really fast (ARK2000PV-based) video card, a 10/100 NIC, and possibly a controller card. If a motherboard with lower PCI performace won't effect any of that, then I won't mind.

It looks like I've already been searching for most of these motherboards. I was thinking there would be a lot more available then these:

ASUS PVI-486SP3
FIC 486-VIP-IO
FIC 486-VIP-IO2
Soyo SY-4SAW2 (*if it has PS/2)
Chaintech 486SPM (*rev with PS/2 support)
Zida 4DPS

Aside from the FIC boards, every board seems to be using the SiS chipset + Award BIOS combination. The FIC boards seem to be using a VIA chipset. Does anyone know if these boards can format 8GB drives? If they don't, I suppose I can always get a separate controller, or a couple smaller drives.

I think the biggest thing limiting my board choices is the need for a PS/2 port. Has anyone tried one of those PS/2 PCI Cards?

I think the 4DPS support HDDs up to 40GB with the latest unofficial BIOS release, which I asked for some posts ago. But seems no one has it.

In my experience, I would avoid the VIA chipset 486 boards. The memory performance is mediocre at best, and the boards just don't perform very well. I have owned the FIC PIO-3, and am currently messing with an FIC 486-PVT-IO (VLB only) and now remember why I got rid of the PIO-3. One thing that the FIC boards have going for them though, is most of the boards have 'beta' BIOSs available on the FIC FTP server that are Y2K compliant and support 8GB hard drives. I'm using the newest BIOS on my PVT-IO and a WD 8GB drive and I have full BIOS support without having to use drive overlay software. If you want about as much performance as you are going to get from a 486 board, look for PCI boards based on the SIS 496/497 chipset. My other system uses a LuckyStar board based on the SIS 496/497 and it supports EDO memory and with a Pentium Overdrive 83MHz and a 3dfx Voodoo 1, it is amazing what I can actually run on it with surprising performance and reliability!

ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/bios/486/

My SIS board that I'm really happy with is like the one pictured at this link by Vogons member 2Mourty, my system is similar to his now:
Finally!! A stable Socket 3 System!!

ACSK wrote:

I think the biggest thing limiting my board choices is the need for a PS/2 port. Has anyone tried one of those PS/2 PCI Cards?

Yea I got one from ebay. Tried it in my Pentium 133 machine with no luck. It has the green and purple PS/2 ports and although the keyboard light comes on, it doesn't work and at POST you get a keyboard error.

The mouse port also doesn't do anything...

So yea why not just build a Pentium if you need speed and PS/2 ports and things like that? They are much easier to find IMO.

I can understand if you just want "a 486" but looking for a fast one doesn't make sense to me as you can just go with a Pentium 100 or 133 and be done with it, without having to look for specific components.

If you are doing it for "because it's cool" reasons, well then I understand 🤣

Just to add more data. The 4DPS board, like the one I have, doesn't support EDO memory, so you're stuck with FPM SIMMs. I didn't play too much with it, so I can't say if it's a stable and reliable board or not.

There is a patched BIOS for the Soyo 4SAW supporting 128 GB hard drives.
This bios also supports CD-ROM boot.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

ACSK wrote:

I think the biggest thing limiting my board choices is the need for a PS/2 port. Has anyone tried one of those PS/2 PCI Cards?

Yea I got one from ebay. Tried it in my Pentium 133 machine with no luck. It has the green and purple PS/2 ports and although the keyboard light comes on, it doesn't work and at POST you get a keyboard error.

The mouse port also doesn't do anything...

Pity. I wonder if an ISA based PS/2 port card exists?

I'm not sure...

Best bet is to make a PS/2 a priority when shopping around

retro games 100 wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

ACSK wrote:

I think the biggest thing limiting my board choices is the need for a PS/2 port. Has anyone tried one of those PS/2 PCI Cards?

Yea I got one from ebay. Tried it in my Pentium 133 machine with no luck. It has the green and purple PS/2 ports and although the keyboard light comes on, it doesn't work and at POST you get a keyboard error.

The mouse port also doesn't do anything...

Pity. I wonder if an ISA based PS/2 port card exists?

I looked for those, haven't been successful. Another option would be to use a PS/2 mouse that works on a serial connection. The mouse will have to support serial internally or the adapter won't work.

Tetrium wrote:

retro games 100 wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yea I got one from ebay. Tried it in my Pentium 133 machine with no luck. It has the green and purple PS/2 ports and although the keyboard light comes on, it doesn't work and at POST you get a keyboard error.

The mouse port also doesn't do anything...

Pity. I wonder if an ISA based PS/2 port card exists?

I looked for those, haven't been successful. Another option would be to use a PS/2 mouse that works on a serial connection. The mouse will have to support serial internally or the adapter won't work.

Thanks for that idea: I am going to buy a PS/2 to serial adapter, and see if my PS/2 mice work OK using a serial port on a 486 mobo.