First post, by noshutdown
i had this idea of collecting info of 486 pci chipsets for years, but never made much progress. so i think i should start a thread and ask everyone to give some help.
first there is the most popular sis496 and umc8881, they are both quite fast and mature, although i feel that the sis496 is slightly better. the umc8881 also suffered a bit from lack of info, no datasheet has ever been found so far.
and there is ali1489, i had expectations on it but havn't seen a satisfying board so far. maybe it came out too late so that the board manufacturers didn't put much effort on it. most, if not all m1489 boards that i've seen are prone to at least one of following weaknesses:
* only 2 simm slots
* leaky barrel battery or rtc, some barrel batteries are even in a place that's difficult to replace.
* slow performance from bugged design (pcchips m918 for example)
* cheap build quality
and some less common chipsets:
intel 420tx/zx and 420ex
via496
ali m1439
opti802 and 895
nec unidentified
ald488
and probably some others that i missed
i hope anyone who have them would provide info on how they performs(speed and reliability), and what characteristics and weaknesses they have.
