Well, I guess that depends on what era of DOS games you're looking for.

In general, I question the point of building 486 ISA systems. If you need the increased computing horsepower over say, a 386... then you also probably need more bandwidth to the video card -- and will stand to benefit from more disk bandwidth as well. Therefore... VLB or bust, IMO. (A shame, because that motherboard is otherwise a nice find.)

Then again, 1993 is a fairly early 486. I had an SX/25 in the early 90s -- ISA, obviously. It did OK with Sierra / Dynamix titles like PQ3, Willy Beamish, KQ6. It didn't take long to hit a ceiling though. My DX2/66 made all the difference, at least for a while. It started showing its age on Duke3D, Wing Commander 4, and >8 channel MODs.

I think you said somewhere that you have Socket 7 systems, so if you're shooting for games pre-FPS craze, and don't have any 386 or earlier systems, I guess an ISA 486 would be an OK place to start. In that case, I wouldn't bother with a 50MHz CPU -- particularly not the DX. A DX/33 would be fine. 8MB RAM is good.

The usual suspects for hardware -- grab an S3, Cirrus, or maybe Tseng ET4000 VGA card. SBPro or clone sound card is fine. Who cares which IDE controller -- what's the difference at that point. Unless you already have a 540MB HDD, you're going to pay a lot for one. Just get a 420MB drive. Close enough, and much cheaper.

Okay, I may have to compromise on the Sound card. I have a SB Pro 2.0 with Yamaha OPL3 but it won’t play MIDI files in DOS mode. So I think I may have to go with an SB AWE32 or AWE64.
I can go with Cirrus Logic or Tseng for ISA graphics.

Intel DX/2-66
16MB RAM and 256kb cache
motherboard with VLB and/or EISA slots
540MB SCSI HDD and CD-ROM drive. (fastest CD-ROM drive in 1993 was 3X or 4X)
Caching disk controller
Mach32, S3 928 or possibly Weitek P9000 if you're willing to tolerate shitty DOS performance
SB16 or PAS16
17" CRT. NEC or Sony.

I recommend reading PC Magazine from 1993. DX-50 was pretty much passe by 1993.

I think that if you are going for something as rare (at least here, I think I've had every other 486, but never a DX-50) as a 486DX-50 it deserves to be on an EISA board and SCSI is a must.

If you are looking for 1993/94 VLB motherboard - then I have a nice one for sale at the moment. Good condition. Tested.

ISA in 1993 sounds fairly outdated to me.. I got my DX33 in 1992 and even then I was advised to not go for ISA as it was a deadend, and got a VLB system instead. That DX33 with a VLB Cirrus Logic was my first taste of Doom.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Intel DX/2-66 16MB RAM and 256kb cache motherboard with VLB and/or EISA slots 540MB SCSI HDD and CD-ROM drive. (fastest CD-ROM d […]
Show full quote

Intel DX/2-66
16MB RAM and 256kb cache
motherboard with VLB and/or EISA slots
540MB SCSI HDD and CD-ROM drive. (fastest CD-ROM drive in 1993 was 3X or 4X)
Caching disk controller
Mach32, S3 928 or possibly Weitek P9000 if you're willing to tolerate shitty DOS performance
SB16 or PAS16
17" CRT. NEC or Sony.

I recommend reading PC Magazine from 1993. DX-50 was pretty much passe by 1993.

Well, I did Wiki “486” and the manufacture date for 50 and 66 MHz is from 1993-94.

HanJammer wrote:

If you are looking for 1993/94 VLB motherboard - then I have a nice one for sale at the moment. Good condition. Tested.

Nice, I do have a 486 VLB motherboard by Gigabyte “GA-486”
I am not sure the manufacture date but it does work.

If I go with VLB I have really good video cards and controllers too.
I also have an Adaptec SCSI controller.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Well, I did Wiki “486” and the manufacture date for 50 and 66 MHz is from 1993-94.

You missed this:

https://i.imgur.com/XamoegQ.png

The original non-mulitplier DX-50 was 1991.

Maybe I will stick with my original idea of an ISA motherboard with 486dx-50.
I have to check my ISA graphics card stock.