Oh man... you're the kid in the toy store and don't know what to pick. Sucks to be you /irony

Maybe build a perfect Ultima 7 machine (just like badmofo) as lowend. Then go full out on a highend 486? Then a classic DX2-66?

Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 is the fastest VLB board I've come across, so I can recommend those. Both your boards have 30 PIN memory or is that a typo? My board has 72 pins.

And btw, FINALLY a good 486 thread. Damn tired of all the Pentium 4 and Athlon talk here on Vogons lately.

Corrected - thanks!

Ill should do:

TSENG ET4000/W32P - STB Lightspeed VLB Video card (with 135MHz RAMDAC) (1993)
Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 - Rev 2.0 - 1994 - SiS 407/471 (ISA/VLB) - 4x 72 pin SIMMS - 33/40Mhz Clock
20- 24MB RAM (so you also can share it with virtual EMS memory.
Processor is a little special choice from your own ( differs from which games you want to play) ( i have chosen to try a 80Mhz one for now, if it would to slow for some things i want to run, then i go a step higher speed)

Top Vl-Bus video card to me is Mach64 4mb, but good luck finding one. A Mach32 will be easier to find and cheaper and give you most of the performance, so represents a much better value.

Note that both 5x86 ADW and ADZ support WB cache.

Wow so much choice!

Seriously 486 machines are quite a bit of work, I would just build one and go with the Biostar MB-8433UUD-A 😀

I have this board and I documented a lot of features of it here: Biostar MB-8433UUD-A

It still is the fastest 486 in the benchmark database 😊 and has a PS/2 port as well.

I would do what I did as a teenager. Mod a case with some switches, wire them to the FSB and multiplier headers which will allow you to configure your machine from a 486DX2-50 to a 486DX4-100. My choice of chip is the IntelDX4. It is faster, clock for clock, compared to AMD and boards are more compatible with it. The 5x86 133 is only a little bit faster.

Storage: CF cards work very well for me.

RAM: I found no difference between EDO of Fast Page memory. Stick with 16MB for better compatibility with older games.

Pretty sure that in a 486, the pipelining functionality of EDO DRAM isn't used at all, so it just behaves like regular fast page stuff.

RacoonRider wrote:

Note that both 5x86 ADW and ADZ support WB cache.

Thanks!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Wow so much choice! […]
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Wow so much choice!

Seriously 486 machines are quite a bit of work, I would just build one and go with the Biostar MB-8433UUD-A 😀

I have this board and I documented a lot of features of it here: Biostar MB-8433UUD-A

It still is the fastest 486 in the benchmark database 😊 and has a PS/2 port as well.

I would do what I did as a teenager. Mod a case with some switches, wire them to the FSB and multiplier headers which will allow you to configure your machine from a 486DX2-50 to a 486DX4-100. My choice of chip is the IntelDX4. It is faster, clock for clock, compared to AMD and boards are more compatible with it. The 5x86 133 is only a little bit faster.

Storage: CF cards work very well for me.

RAM: I found no difference between EDO of Fast Page memory. Stick with 16MB for better compatibility with older games.

I'm up to the challenge! Following your YouTube videos on the Time Machine, I'm finally satisfied with my own and I'm looking to now dig into this 486 era a bit more. The Biostar will definitely be used in one of the builds, and hopefully this one will be the most straightforward since it's the 'newest' of these systems (and has a TON of documentation on it). I'll plan on using FPM memory in these systems as well as CF cards (using CF->IDE adapters).

Do I need to worry about L2 cache chips on these? I think most of these have 128 or 256KB on board, but I don't know what speed. I'm also not entirely sure how this L2 cache works with the TAG chip, and would appreciate any links to info about how this stuff works. My Google Foo hasn't yielded too much info on this topic.

Artex wrote:

Do I need to worry about L2 cache chips on these? I think most of these have 128 or 256KB on board, but I don't know what speed. I'm also not entirely sure how this L2 cache works with the TAG chip, and would appreciate any links to info about how this stuff works. My Google Foo hasn't yielded too much info on this topic.

Already covered 😁

Motherboard cache (for 386 and 486 motherboards): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VBkTNMGRMM

256KB is the way to go. 9 chips of the same kind. Just fill all the sockets. Done. Link for buying brand new Cache chips: http://au.element14.com/jsp/search/productdet … i-55c5-00001621

Got these in all my 386 and 486 boards and work with the fastest/tightest timings at standard FSB setting.

Regarding L2 cache the PCI boards normally only support maximum 512kb and the VLB boards up to 1MB.

Any chance you could benchmark the Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 with a ET4000/W32p and 9GXE64 VLB against the Biostar board (using S3 Trio64) with the Am5x86-P75? Fastest settings possible in both BIOS'es.

I'm curious to:

1. Performance difference on the VL/I-486SV2GX4 with ET4000/W32p compared to the 9GXE64 VLB.
2. Performance difference between the Biostar (which is one of the best 486 PCI boards) compared to the 486SV2GX4 (which many say is the best 486 VLB board). I know it won't be an entirely fair comparison unless you have the same graphics chip in both VLB and PCI form, but use what you got. Atleast try and use a PCI card roughly the same speed as the VLB counterpart. Normally people use much faster 1996-1999 graphic cards in the 486 PCI boards for benchmarks. Some may argue that having a 486 PCI board gives an advantage to using faster graphics cards for increased VGA performance, and I agree, but then it gets harder comparing.

I could test the Am5x86-P75 in my own VL/I-486SV2GX4, but with the board installed in a AT case where the CPU slot is completely inaccessible it is too much work. (I currently have a PODP installed which is fastest stock and overclocked Socket 3 system with the current results on Phil's benchmark)

I can certainly benchmark the boards in the configuration you specified. I'll need to snag a S3 Trio64 off Ebay - any specific card in mind? There are a lot out there...

Artex wrote:

I can certainly benchmark the boards in the configuration you specified. I'll need to snag a S3 Trio64 off Ebay - any specific card in mind? There are a lot out there...

I just mentioned the Trio64 because that is what is used in the Biostar bench on Phils VGA database and it's very common. If you want to try going full out on the Biostar the Voodoo3 PCI boards are seriously quick in VGA performance. If you want to compare chip to chip then getting a S3 Vision864 PCI or ET4000/W32p PCI is the best, but no need to go spending money just for a requested benchmark by me 😀 Don't you have some old cheap PCI cards laying around in your collection that came with some system?

vetz wrote:

Artex wrote:

I can certainly benchmark the boards in the configuration you specified. I'll need to snag a S3 Trio64 off Ebay - any specific card in mind? There are a lot out there...

I just mentioned the Trio64 because that is what is used in the Biostar bench on Phils VGA database and it's very common. If you want to try going full out on the Biostar the Voodoo3 PCI boards are seriously quick in VGA performance. If you want to compare chip to chip then getting a S3 Vision864 PCI or ET4000/W32p PCI is the best, but no need to go spending money just for a requested benchmark by me 😀 Don't you have some old cheap PCI cards laying around in your collection that came with some system?

I just took a look through my database and I have several of the following cards:

S3 Virge 325 - Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 PCI
S3 Virge DX 375 - Daytona 64V PCI
S3 Virge DX 375 - Diamond Steakth 3D 2000 Pro PCI
S3 Virge VX 988 - Diamond Stealth 3D 3000 Pro PCI
S3 Virge VX 988 - STB Velocity 3D PCI
S3 Vision968-P - Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM 3200 PCI
S3 Vision968-P - Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM PCI
Trident Daytona 64T PCI

The Vision968-P is probably the best choice out of the bunch.

Before I make any specific HW combinations, do you really want to fill up all the 4 AT cases with 486 hardware? What about saving one or two for Socket 4 or Socket 5? Lots of fun stuff there as well.

Tempting, but I already have a 3.3V P5-75 setup and not must interest in the 5V 1st generation Pentiums. The only Pentium overdrive processors I have are boxed/sealed so I'd prefer not to use them either. 😀

I'm not sure how to do 4 systems with what you have, but if I were in your position, I'd go :

- 486SV2GX4 + DX50 + STB Lightspeed (the most likely to accept 50MHz)
- 486SV2GX4 + DX4 100 + Diamond Stealth 32 as the main one
- MB8433 + DX5 133 ADZ + Virge DX for a uber 486 (but S3 Trio would match better)

Since you already have slow ones (25/33MHz ?), that should cover the way up.
The DX4 100 could be a DX2 66 instead, but having a WB VLB 486 is nice.
The DX50 will make you look awesome and give a temporary +2 charisma boost every time you speak about it.
The cyrixes are definitely not 486s.

Thanks everyone! Keep up the recommendations! I did find a Trio64V+ in my stash, so I will use that in the MB8433 PCI board.

sliderider wrote:

Top Vl-Bus video card to me is Mach64 4mb, but good luck finding one. A Mach32 will be easier to find and cheaper and give you most of the performance, so represents a much better value.

What's the appeal there exactly? It's rather so so in DOS, and the extra 2MB in windows is borderline useless.