VOGONS

1987 to 1997 CPUs by Year

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First post, by clueless1

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Here is a project I was working on for fun. Maybe of interest to some of you guys here?

edit: this is intended only to show common, consumer-oriented CPUs from the heyday of the DOS era; so no server or industrial CPUs. There are a number of GREAT resources already out there that are much more thorough, but take more effort to browse through.

As some of you know, I have an interest in slowing CPUs down with setmul and other means to try to achieve period-correct performance for multiple generations from one CPU. Part of my process is looking at game release dates and comparing to what CPUs were available in that year. So here is what I was able to come up with by researching various sites, including Wikipedia, pcguide.com and http://www.cpu-collection.de. Some of these release dates are not easy to come by!

note: these are CPUs that were released in that year, not necessarily the most common CPU in use that year. My gut tells me the most common CPUs for a particular year were actually released the previous year or earlier (when the initial release price goes down to more affordable levels).

1987- Intel 386DX-20
1988- Intel 386SX-16,25; Intel 386DX-25
1989- Intel 386SX-20; Intel 386DX-33; Intel 486DX-20,25
1990- Intel 486DX-33
1991- Am386SX-20,25,40; Am386DX-20,25,33; Intel 486SX-16,20,25; Intel 486DX-50
1992- Am386SX-33; Am386DX-40; Intel 386SX-33; Intel 486SX-33; Intel 486DX2-40,50,66
1993- Am486DX-40; Am486DX2-50; Cyrix 486S-25,33,40; Cyrix 486DX-33,40,50; Cyrix 486DX2-50,66,80; Intel Pentium 60,66
1994- Am486DX2-50,66,80; Intel 486DX4-75,100; Intel Pentium 75,90,100
1995- Am486DX4-100,120; AMD K5-PR75,90; Cyrix 486DX4-100; Cyrix 5x86-100,120; Cyrix 6x86 PR120,133,150; Intel Pentium 120,133
1996- AMD K5-PR100,120,133; Cyrix 6x86 PR166,200; Intel Pentium 150,166,200
1997- AMD K5-PR166; AMD K6-166,200,233; Cyrix 6x86MX-PR166,200,233; Intel POD 125,150,166,180,200; Intel Pentium MMX 166,200,233; Intel Pentium II 233,266,300

edit 1: removed i386DX-40 and i486DX4-120 per firage.
edit 2: added Cyrix 5x86 per member's PM

Last edited by clueless1 on 2016-04-23, 20:01. Edited 5 times in total.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
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Reply 2 of 10, by MMaximus

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clueless1 wrote:

... My gut tells me the most common CPUs for a particular year were actually released the previous year or earlier (when the initial release price goes down to more affordable levels).

Nice list, thanks for doing the research. I have a feeling your observation might be correct but not for the early years when high-end CPUs probably needed a period of several years before becoming mainstream. For example, I doubt the average home user was using a 386DX in 1988... it was still very much an XT era. 386DX probably started becoming "affordable" maybe around 1991? I remember we replaced our XT at home with a 386SX16, around 1990 or 1991. 386DX was still quite expensive.

Last edited by MMaximus on 2016-04-22, 15:07. Edited 2 times in total.

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Reply 3 of 10, by firage

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There appear to be some errors. There was no 40 MHz 386DX or 120 MHz DX4 from Intel.

My big-red-switch 486

Reply 4 of 10, by clueless1

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Any errors are from my sources. 😀 I do recall getting conflicting info on those two CPUs and I wasn't sure. I'll remove them from the original post. Thanks.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 5 of 10, by clueless1

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vlask wrote:

Well what can i say - this little work of mine maybe help you....

http://vgamuseum.info/images/doc/cputree.png

Nice! I wish I would've come across that when I was researching. 😀 Yours and cpu-collection.de have very organized info per year, but I was wanting a simpler edition, with just the most common consumer-oriented CPUs so it would be easier to absorb at a glance.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 6 of 10, by clueless1

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MMaximus wrote:
clueless1 wrote:

... My gut tells me the most common CPUs for a particular year were actually released the previous year or earlier (when the initial release price goes down to more affordable levels).

Nice list, thanks for doing the research. I have a feeling your observation might be correct but not for the early years when high-end CPUs probably needed a period of several years before becoming mainstream. For example, I doubt the average home user was using a 386DX in 1988... it was still very much an XT era. 386DX probably started becoming "affordable" maybe around 1991? I remember we replaced our XT at home with a 386SX16, around 1990 or 1991. 386DX was still quite expensive.

Yeah, I agree. I base that observation on the fact that when I got my 386SX-20 in 1992, it was one of the most common CPUs offered in the $1000 system price range--and it was originally release in 1989.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 7 of 10, by candle_86

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It's slightly ironic come to think of it, during the 80's the most common system was an 8088 type, and today in 2016 the most common systems are Core 2 Duo, though the reasons are diffrent the fact is a 10 year old cpu is relevant today same as it was in 1990

Reply 8 of 10, by BSA Starfire

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candle_86 wrote:

It's slightly ironic come to think of it, during the 80's the most common system was an 8088 type, and today in 2016 the most common systems are Core 2 Duo, though the reasons are diffrent the fact is a 10 year old cpu is relevant today same as it was in 1990

I think your right about core2, I know four people including 2 regular World of tanks players who still have Core2 rigs as main systems, I only upgraded to AMD FX recently myself as the caps were going on my core2 motherboard.

286 20MHz,1MB RAM,Trident 8900B 1MB, Conner CFA-170A.SB 1350B
386SX 33MHz,ULSI 387,4MB Ram,OAK OTI077 1MB. Seagate ST1144A, MS WSS audio
Amstrad PC 9486i, DX/2 66, 16 MB RAM, Cirrus SVGA,Win 95,SB 16
Cyrix MII 333,128MB,SiS 6326 H0 rev,ESS 1869,Win ME

Reply 9 of 10, by Skyscraper

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I find this CPU timeline the best one so far.

It's not complete or without errors but it lists sources and I really like sources.

http://processortimeline.info/

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