First post, by Blavius
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I finally got a POD83 for my 486. I realize that in itself isn't worth mentioning, but there are some aspects to it that I haven't seen discussed much, so maybe this is of some value.
History time! The computer I had access to in my early teens from '94-'98 was a 486DX-33 with 32Mb ram. Although it was outdated from the get go, it was quite a usable machine for writing school essays or surfing the early web. For playing games - not so much. The most recent thing that would run was Red Alert. I remember skirmishes that lasted two hours or more because they would slow down to a crawl later in game. Still it was what I had, and I loved it.
My knowledge at the time on upgrades was spotty. I knew there were pentiums, as they were in the flyers in the mail, but never heard of the POD. One time, my cousin said there was a 133MHz 486, but without anything to back it up I wasn't sure I believed him - it seemed outrageous. I asked my dad about it and he said upgrading the processor might break something and that was the end of that.
Ok, back to now. Out of nostalgia I bought a 486 again, an IBM ValuePoint 425. This machine comes with a 25MHz 486SX, but has an OverDrive upgrade socket and a socketed oscillator. Had a lot of fun with it so far, definitely cured my frustration from so long ago 😀. I played around with a DX-2 and AM5X86-133 (the chip my cousin told me about). I ran at 25,33 and 40MHz bus speeds. In the end I settled on the 5X86 at 133 Mhz and no L2 cache as that was the fastest stable configuration.
I didn't consider the POD83. I read about it - it was comparable or worse than the AM5X86-133, while being finicky and expensive. A bad deal. Still, recently one popped up on my local craigslist for a price way under the ebay listings - but still quite a lot for my taste. I bought it though, knowing it might be a disappointment. It's just such a weird chip - and I think it's really cool. I wanted to try it.
My IBM likes the POD, worked right away. It even runs stable with my WB 128Kb L2 cache module - something the other processors didn't. It lives up to its reputation elsewhere though; in Phil's Computer Lab benchmarks it is indeed quite comparable to the AM5X86-133, except Quake, of course. Not that it does great there though, I was expecting a bit more of a boost. The L2 cache works, but only boosts results by a smidge. I can't do anything about it; the bios is super basic and does not offer any control over memory beyond turning L1 and L2 on or off.
Processor-Bus (MHz)-Cache (Kb)-RAM (Mb)-Doom LOW-Doom HIGH-QUAKE-PCP-TopBIntel 486SX 25MHz 25 0 16 2303 - - 4.3 105Intel 486DX2 50MHz 25 0 16 1595 - 5.3 7.5 147 185Intel 486DX2 50MHz 25 128 8 1363 3804 5.6 8 148Intel 486DX2 66MHz 33 128 8 1071 2921 7.3 10.4 185Intel 486DX2 66MHz 33 0 32 3126 - - - -AM5X68 100MHz 33 0 32 - 3084 7.4 10.3 169AM5X68 133MHz 33 0 32 906 2532 10.2 13.7 219AM5X68 120MHz 40 0 32 802 2212 10.8 14.8 232AM5X68 133MHz 33 128 32 789 2381 10.7 14.8 222AM5X86 160MHz 40 0 32 765 2118 12.2 16.5 245P24T PODP5V83 33 0 32 934 2580 12.2 13.9 201P24T PODP5V83 33 128 32 933 2528 12.8 14.9 203P24T PODP5V83 33 128 16 928 2529 12.8 15 203
So why this whole story? As you can see above I didn't gain much over the 5X86 on paper, but thats not how it -feels-. For example, GTA runs notably better on the POD. On the 5X86 it really chugged when driving the car on higher speeds, making it hard to control. On the POD; it stays quite smooth, enough to make it fun to play. Same for Command & Conquer DOS, also -seemed- to run better, especially when a large number of units is involved. Unfortunately it's hard to quantitatively prove this.
What is going on here? Is this about code optimizations for pentium, eventhough it might be less drastic than in Quake?
Perhaps judging the POD by the benchmarks we use for 386's and 486's isn't totally fair. At this point I feel it actually is a decent upgrade from the 5X86 if you want to play something more involved than Doom. I'm stoked to have it at least.