The included APU makes a world of difference, so is that particular addition the one you are most interested in seeing what changes it affords? If not, you should specify that the 386DX has its matching 387 with it.

486 is supposed to have roughly 2x the integer performance clock for clock and much faster fpu than an 387s.

And what about performances such as :

1.) The loading time of Windows 3.11 and speed of execution of programs within Windows 3.11 such as Microsoft Word 4.0 for Windows

2.) Doom II fps

3.) Installation screen of Wing Commander II, and the Save Time option, differences

4.) Unzipping of a 20MB file in DOS using PKZIP

5.) 21st century's Pinball Fantasies - where there is an option to select Ultra High Quality for Sound in setup... any differences using High or Ultra High Quality?

And things like that. Thanks!

http://groups.google.com (totally awesome retro research info source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/80486/

• 8 KB unified level 1 cache for code and data was added to the CPU. In later versions of the 80486 the size of level 1 cache was increased to 16 KB.
• Execution time of instructions was significantly reduced. Many load, store and arithmetic instructions executed in just one cycle (assuming that the data was already in the cache).
• Intel 486 featured much faster bus transfers - 1 CPU cycle as opposed to two or more CPU cycles for the 80386 bus.
• Floating-point unit was integrated into 80486DX CPUs. This eliminated delay in communications between the CPU and FPU. Furthermore, all floating-point instructions were optimized - they required fewer number of CPU cycles to execute.

There are 386s that will compete with 486s. 40 MHz 386 will give low end 486s a definite challenge. Especially if you ignore other advancements like VLB. And some later 386-ish CPUs have a on-die L1 cache too. And there are also some "486" CPUs that are not really full-on 486s at all.

And what ih8registrations said. 😀

1. Load times should still be mostly a function of disk, program execution will be faster on the 486.
2 doom ii, 486 faster.
3. the early wc series is non speed governed, in which a 486 can be too fast. I recall a discussion around here about the sweet spot, around 386-33 or 386-40/486-20. fyi, the 386-40 came out in 91, which is the same yr as wc ii and two years after the 486-20, in 91 the fastest x86 was a 486-50.
4. unzipping will be faster on the 486.
5. 486 faster, pf came out in 94, but according to mobygames its minimum cpu requirement is only a 286.

Thanks guys! This is really informative and useful stuff I learnt here! Just wanted to know from first-hand experience. Thanks again! 😀