No, they are not. It's about a 5-10% performance loss with both the AMD X5 5x86 and the Pentium Overdrive (probably the same on slower CPU's)

See this thread/post. Compare my fake L2 cache board with Feipoa's Ultimate 486 benchmark results.
Help me decide Pentium Overdrive 83@100mhz vs Pentium 90

Does it look anything like my 486 vlb board mentioned here.

recently obtained 486 goodness - TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 486DX2-80 and INTEL 486DX2-66

vetz wrote:

No, they are not. It's about a 5-10% performance loss with both the AMD X5 5x86 and the Pentium Overdrive (probably the same on slower CPU's)

See this thread/post. Compare my fake L2 cache board with Feipoa's Ultimate 486 benchmark results.
Help me decide Pentium Overdrive 83@100mhz vs Pentium 90

thats good, so dispite the missing L2 cache its still faster overall then say a standard 486 of the era with a 66mhz dx2

would you say if I managed to OC the 5x86 that would negate the performance hit from the missing cache?

rgart wrote:

Does it look anything like my 486 vlb board mentioned here.

recently obtained 486 goodness - TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 486DX2-80 and INTEL 486DX2-66

not at all.

vetz wrote:

No, they are not. It's about a 5-10% performance loss with both the AMD X5 5x86 and the Pentium Overdrive (probably the same on slower CPU's)

See this thread/post. Compare my fake L2 cache board with Feipoa's Ultimate 486 benchmark results.
Help me decide Pentium Overdrive 83@100mhz vs Pentium 90

Wouch, I feel like the P90 gives at least 50% more frames per second.
The POD feels sooo not smooth next to it 😖

Your losing a good 5-10% in speed.

I don't think I could run a board with fake cache - it would disrupt my sleep 😜

Why did these companies like PCCHIPS go to such a degree to deceive about L2 Cache.

WRITE BACK CACHE stickers.

Soldered cache chips with part numbers.

Traces on the motherboard from the cache

Was cache so expensive back in the day?

How can they get away with such a deception?

Yes the Cache is high speed SRAM and was one of the most expensive parts of the mainboards.

soviet conscript wrote:

thats good, so dispite the missing L2 cache its still faster overall then say a standard 486 of the era with a 66mhz dx2

would you say if I managed to OC the 5x86 that would negate the performance hit from the missing cache?

You get increased performance (as can be seen with the 180mhz results in the far right of the benchmarks tests), but you are still 5-10% below what you would get on a system with real L2 cache. With the AMD 5x86 running at 160mhz, which is a normal overclock of this CPU, you get the following results:

AMD X5 133@160mhz L1 WB, NO L2
Speedsys: Same as comparison
PCPbench: 7.1 (7.7 in 486 comparison)
Quake 320x200 no sound: 16.4 FPS (17.3 in 486 comparison)

Wouch, I feel like the P90 gives at least 50% more frames per second.
The POD feels sooo not smooth next to it 😖

The benchmark shown in my thread are with the POD overclocked to 100mhz. The POD is actually quite good, especially compared to the early Socket 5 chipsets with the Pentium. With the newer Socket 7 chipsets (VX, HX, TX) it's another ballgame. Just goes to show that a Pentium 90 is not just a Pentium 90 😜

The cache was not so expensive, but the PC Chips were just so cheap, in a bad way.

Its not a big deal, but sram is cool to have and usefull for certain at faster cpu's and programs.

I wouldn't lose sleep over it but if it bothers you that much you could look into desoldering the plugs (fake cache) and then solder new sockets. 15ns is good enough for most but cache chips in general are getting a little hard to find.

took some pictures of the board in question.

the fake cache

underside of the board under fake cache

OK, its a v3.4b/f so maybe a M919 motherboard?

Speaking of fake cache, I got for 1€ this board:

The cache chips are not as long as the holes on the motherboard, are soldered directly on the mobo, have that "WRITE BACK" damned label, BUT the traces do not seem fake!

I have spare hardware except for the CPU. Do you think it's worth trying to build a 486 PC on this? 😀

ah, just did some looking now that I figured out the possible model of the board and the the cache is fake....but if I can find a apperently rare cache stick for the COAST slot there i'll have cache? thats good...I think?

soviet conscript wrote:

ah, just did some looking now that I figured out the possible model of the board and the the cache is fake....but if I can find a apperently rare cache stick for the COAST slot there i'll have cache? thats good...I think?

Stay away from wiredforservice. His stuff is almost always way overpriced, even if it is rare. I bought a M919 motherboard with the 256k cache stick for a third of what he is asking for a cache stick alone. I don't think I'd pay more than 40 USD maximum for the cache stick and even then I'd have to pretty desperate to go that high. I have one M919 with the cache stick and one without and getting another cache stick isn't exactly a pressing priority. If another one comes along cheap, I'd grab it for sure, but I'm not actively hunting one down at the moment.

So, fake cache aside, is the M919 actually a decent board? As far as I can tell, it seems to be one of the most common PCI socket 3 boards out there. Also, how hard is it to obtain a cache stick for it?

Yes it looks to be a decent board, apples to apples or apples to oranges but at the end of the day the gains from adding the real cache are small potatoes. Just be happy that you got a socket 3 board with pci and just keep looking around for other boards.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So, fake cache aside, is the M919 actually a decent board? As far as I can tell, it seems to be one of the most common PCI socket 3 boards out there. Also, how hard is it to obtain a cache stick for it?

I havnt had any issues with it. I read some people had stability issues including EMS errors and system lockups but they may be with older revisions.

The cache stick seems to be semi rare but not unobtainable. theres an overpriced one on ebay right now for something like $150.

Show me where on ebay.
I know a guy that has tons of coast modules maybe there are some of these in the pile.
But i do not know how to seperate those from p1 pipelined burst coast modules.

JaNoZ wrote:

Show me where on ebay.
I know a guy that has tons of coast modules maybe there are some of these in the pile.
But i do not know how to seperate those from p1 pipelined burst coast modules.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Cache-Elpina-486 … =item1e745269a1

I beleive the sticks say right on the back "for 486 m919"