PVI is one of the finest 486 mobos out there. You should not feel nervous about it, but feel really good instead. 😀
Attached you all the info (manuals, etc), bioses and drivers you will probably need. Skipped the WinXP and Win2k ide drivers.
1.html contains the most relevant info there.

Board does EDO. No observable difference compared to FPM.
The onboard IDE controller is as good as it gets for 486DX# machine.

VGAs: Matrox MGA for PCI and S3 Trio64, Ark1000VL, WD90C33-ZZ for VLB will be very good choice.
MGA are cheap and abundant. The VLB ones are harder to obtain.
In reality S3 Trio64V2/DX PCI or CL5428 VLB will do just fine as well - also abundant and work well.

All best.

As for OS/2 - great OS. No question about it. Had a lot of potential, but sadly it never out-grew the casual/business use case.
Entirely related to lack of other software available for it.
Every once in a while i fire it up for the kick.

EDO on 486 is a bit out-of-place technology. Yes some late boards do support it, but there is just no need for it (unless overclocking or running Cyrix 5x86 2x).

In Pentium world, the EDO can make it possible to use x-2-2-2 burst cycles on 60/66 MHz.

However late 486 chipsets using 25/33 MHz bus like SiS 496 don't have problems achieving the same with ordinary 60ns FPM RAM chips. Sometimes even @ 40 MHz. True, 50 MHz is a lottery on many levels, however I sometimes had to slow down L2 cache, but never RAM.

It is just like with why there is no need for pipelined-burst cache on 486. Simply, because if ordinary SRAMs can handle 2-1-1-1 bursts just fine and pipelined-burst at 33 MHz would be actually slower.

So while EDO (or PB-SRAM) are important enablers for Pentium performance they won't help 486 nearly that much.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-03-21, 21:06:

PVI is one of the finest 486 mobos out there. You should not feel nervous about it, but feel really good instead. :)
Attached you all the info (manuals, etc), bioses and drivers you will probably need. Skipped the WinXP and Win2k ide drivers.
1.html contains the most relevant info there.

Wow, thanks! I'm speechless :D

Board does EDO. No observable difference compared to FPM.
The onboard IDE controller is as good as it gets for 486DX# machine.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-03-21, 21:06:

VGAs: Matrox MGA for PCI and S3 Trio64, Ark1000VL, WD90C33-ZZ for VLB will be very good choice.
MGA are cheap and abundant. The VLB ones are harder to obtain.
In reality S3 Trio64V2/DX PCI or CL5428 VLB will do just fine as well - also abundant and work well.

Got my hands on a CL5428/2MB (EDO) VLB. It'll do fine, I presume - and docs say it should support up to 50MHz (if I choose to stick with my DX50).

Thanks again!
/Eirik

If you're still looking for a mobo for the 486DX-50, I can highly recommend the ASUS ISA-486SV2. VLB+ISA, blue Socket 2.
It's in my build for a long time and the system works well with the VLB Cirrus Logic graphics.

I have an ASUS ISA-486 that I'd like to try with a DX-50 I got a while back, just need to replace the oscillator with a 50MHz one, and then set a jumper.

Like the OP, I'd also be interested in hearing experiences of other vogoners that have DX-50 configs up and running. My board currently works fine @33MHz with the men/cache settings on "Fast" with 70ns RAM and 20ns cache. How likely it is that I'll have to change settings to "Slow" with the DX-50, considering this board is ISA only (no VLB to mess things up)? I'd like to avoid having to buy faster RAM and cache if possible.

One thing I noticed is that 60ns RAM and 15ns cache didn't seem to be too widespread around 1991 when the DX-50 came out, so I'm wondering how (or if) people were able to tighten up their timings back then.

TheMobRules wrote on 2021-03-22, 20:45:

I have an ASUS ISA-486 that I'd like to try with a DX-50 I got a while back, just need to replace the oscillator with a 50MHz

, so I'm wondering how (or if) people were able to tighten up their timings back then.

Only by chance, sometimes you could get away overclocking since 20ns is on the edge depending on the latency of other support chips

That said some extremely expensive server class systems ran dx50’s at zero wait states, likely not much consumer grade when your talking 4 grand

I'm working step by step on getting my 1992 EISA DX-50 system up and running. Those old boards are really picky. Have at last found RAM that is fast enough and is supported by the ancient memory controller - it only works with 9-chip SIMMs and supports max 4Mb chip density. The ones that work are 16MB 60ns - but only recognized as 4MB due to chip density limits. Next the board refuses to complete POST or enter BIOS if the RTC isn't powered, so need to sort out a new battery (removed old one for the usual reason). Will look at timings once I actually manage to boot the system fully.

seleryba wrote on 2021-03-22, 19:38:

If you're still looking for a mobo for the 486DX-50, I can highly recommend the ASUS ISA-486SV2. VLB+ISA, blue Socket 2.
It's in my build for a long time and the system works well with the VLB Cirrus Logic graphics.

I'm waiting for an Asus PVI-486SP3 rev. 1.22 to arrive, will see how that one works before I start looking for anything else.

Now I just need a fancy little AT case to go with it :)

So, fancy "case" acquired. Build started. Still waiting for some .. crucial parts :D

The Asus PVI-486SP3 does not officially support a 50 MHz FSB (at least, not according to the revision 1.3 manual that I have and they even inserted an addendum in the manual specifically stating this).
I do agree that it is a very nice motherboard, but I don't think it will be suitable for this purpose.

I have a Chicony CH-471A Socket 3 486 VESA Local Bus motherboard paired with a 486DX 50 MHz CPU and an S3 VESA Local Bus graphics card - surprisingly, it runs very stable at 50 MHz with very little wait states applied.
This motherboard utilises the SIS 85C471 chipset, which is the same chipset used by the Asus ISA-486SV2(GX4) range of motherboards.

It's definitely a unique CPU to have in your collection and fun to play with but, as already mentioned previously in the thread, it doesn't beat a 486DX2 66 MHz in terms of overall performance.
If you wish to build up a system to play games with, I would then suggest a 486DX2 66 MHz or even a 486DX4 100 MHz system.