creepingnet wrote:AT/XT form factor Motherboards and cases should still be a thing. This includes Baby-AT. I like the idea of connecting individual cards so when my USB ports die or my SATA controller goes out, I could just yank it and replace, instead of replace the whole friggin motherboard.
The 486 class to me would still be a viable...
I agree!
appiah4 wrote:aries-mu wrote:(remember that, besides the clock frequency, Intel 486s were slightly faster than AMDs):
No they were not. Cyrix yes, but AMD no. UMC was even faster clock for clock.
You sure? Because I must have seen a lot of tests and benchmarks published by our fellows here showing that Intel 486s were faster than AMD ones, for example even overclocked DX4-100 to 120 vs Am486 DX4-120.... or something... And I remember somebody noticing in some of those reviews that Intel's CPUs were faster... something like that
bakemono wrote:Socket 3 was fairly long lived but it would have been cool to try squeezing even more out of it. How about a Pentium MMX Overdrive 150/160/166?
Nice!!!!!
bakemono wrote:Or a CPU with MTRR/write gathering?
The heck is that???
bakemono wrote:Or how about a 486 board with SDRAM? The Sega Saturn used SDRAM in '94 so it was out there at the time.
Very interesting, I didn't know that! How about a Socket 6 AND Socket 5 or 7 motherboard, VX chipset, DDR SDRAM, pipeline burst L2 cache, UATA 133, able to host both Pentiums and 486s (and related overdrives 😉 )?
bakemono wrote:
Back in the day I heard there were a few socket 5 boards with VLB slots and I wanted to get one and try running a 6x86MX to see how fast it could push a VLB video card with write gathering enabled (it made a big difference on PCI cards, at least in benchmarks). I never did get one but later I read that the VLB slots on those boards were slow to begin with.
Sounds interesting!
bakemono wrote:
VLB slots were kind of a disaster though. 16-bit ISA cards can already be a bit of a pain to insert/remove, so making them even longer is regrettable. EISA was also a bit strange with its extra rows of contacts at a different depth. Maybe they could have used a completely different slot instead, as with PCI, or tried to extend the performance of ISA slots by adding an option for higher clock rate or a burst mode.
The beauty of that EISA system is that EISA slots were backwards compatible with ISA cards. A different slot would have lost this.
But I agree EISA could have been carried on way longer, simply increasing the clock to 33 MHz, or even to 66 MHz later when technology allowed, so you would still have had ISA-compatible slots, and PCI-like performance. Can you imagine a 32 bit 50 or 66 MHz bus-mstering EISA slot and card?
bakemono wrote:
Socket A is another one that could have seen some more love. Where's a socket A chip with 1MB L2 and SSE2??? 😉
Too modern to spike my interests 🤣
brostenen wrote:
Except from the 16kb wb cache, I am running two VLB cards at 0ws on my DX2-80. At least that is how the cards are configured. And it is stable.
WOOW MAN!!!! I'd love to know EXACTLY:
• What motherboard are you using?
• Would THAT motherboard accept an Enhanced Am486 DX-4 120 WB?
• WHAT VLB CARDS are running at 40 MHz 0WS successfully??????
As for the 16 KB WB cache, you can always rent a clean room, order some silicon, open up the CPU and try to DIY , piece of cake!
They said therefore to him: Who are you?
Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you