VOGONS


First post, by tpowell.ca

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Hello.
I'm starting this thread because I have not yet seen one on this specific topic.
That is to say, which 486 (socket 3) motherboards have been known to work best for given requirements and what were their featuresets.

I currently have (in order of acquisition):

  • PC Chips M919 v3.4B/F w/o cache 3 PCI, 4 ISA (of which 1 VLB)
  • Shuttle HOT-433 v4 w/256KB cache 3 PCI, 3 ISA, 1 PCI/ISA shared
  • BIOSTAR 8433UUD v3.1 w/256KB cache 3 PCI, 4 ISA

These all have:

  • UMC UM8881F/UM8886xF chipsets
  • PCI / ISA slots
  • Support for 72-pin EDO memory

The PC Chips M919 v3.4 features:

  • VESA Local Bus slot
  • AMI WinBIOS Graphical BIOS Interface
  • 2x/4x or 3x CPU multiplier jumper (JP17 on v3.4)
  • 5V & 12V CPU fan connectors near CPU
  • Cyrix 5x86-specific feature registers in BIOS
  • A configurable multiplier for PCI/ISA bus speeds

[*]CR2032 CMOS battery[/list]

The Shuttle HOT-433 v4 features:

  • Compact board layout
  • Soldered-on 256KB L2 cache
  • Non-functional PS/2 mouse header (due to missing controller)

The BIOSTAR 8433UUD v3.1 features:

  • PS/2 mouse port
  • A configurable multiplier for PCI/ISA bus speeds

My personal favorite is the Biostar due simply to the PS/2 port and vast amount of configurable BIOS options.
Otherwise given all the bad press, I was actually impressed with the M919 which performed very well (even without L2 cache), overclocks extremely well while remaining stable.

What are your experiences?

  • Merlin: MS-4144, AMD5x86-160 32MB, 16GB CF, ZIP100, Orpheus, GUS, S3 VirgeGX 2MB
    Tesla: GA-6BXC, VIA C3 Ezra-T, 256MB, 120GB SATA, YMF744, GUSpnp, Quadro2
    Newton: K6XV3+/66, AMD K6-III+500, 256MB, 32GB SSD, AWE32, Voodoo3