PCI on a 486 was an eye to the future, but some stability and/or compatibility problems existed with software made for the 386 era. It was also the first iteration of PnP.

VLB on a 486 was basically souping up the 386/486 architecture and thus was quite stable for games expecting that hardware. Dealing with hex addresses, IRQ's and non-PnP hardware may be a headache initially, but was more stable than the 486-PCI combo. PnP didn't get practical until the PII era IMO.

GL1zdA wrote on 2012-01-28, 13:01:

I totally agree. If you want a system, which was high end in its days, DX2+VLB is the way to go. If you just want a fast 486 the […]
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Markk wrote:

In my opinion, the classic 486s were those up to 66MHz. Anything faster released later, was a cheaper substitute for a pentium system.

I totally agree. If you want a system, which was high end in its days, DX2+VLB is the way to go. If you just want a fast 486 then you can build a >=DX4+PCI system (with a good PCI chipset, not bridged from VLB).

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I wouldn't build a 486, I would go buying an OEM unit like with my Acer. Everything will just work and you get nice PS/2 ports for the mouse and keyboard.

OEM 486s are easier to find, but the problem is they often use custom, non-AT parts which makes servicing them harder.

That is what I intend to be building which will have either a write back DX2 66mhz and AMD DX4 100 on this motherboard
The board I have bought has 256k cache and a battery plus being a C1 revision.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/lucky- … e-rev-c1-rev-c2