BinaryDemon wrote on 2026-05-22, 19:42:

Darn, so close. The SX cpu's just seem so prolific, I couldnt bring myself to pick the DX.

Seeing the 'bare' 386 (no ?X designator) on the case badge cemented for me that it wasn't an SX. Sadly, I didn't guess that it was 25MHz. Hard drive size was sorta close at least, but I'd not considered it could be a Quantum drive (another big name, sometimes with a big FOOT) back then. No telling the rotational speed without trying to dig around for ancient spec sheets, but probably 3600 or 4200rpm, and maybe a 17 or 18ms seek, 5-6ms track-to-track seek time.

What's interesting to me is that it's pretty ordinary, almost-but-not-quite verging on high spec. A refreshing change from going to a vintage car show and not a single car has anything less than a V8, as if no car made from '57 to '71 had a straight six or I4.

Sometimes, you don't want to see the hot rod with all the chrome all over the body and under the hood(and the accompanying "boomer board", which noöne wants to see), you want to see that '64 Falcon with the 170 cubic inch straight six.

The bright red on/off switch through me, and thought it might not be business oriented (business priced DX).

dominusprog wrote on 2026-05-22, 19:00:

I have the same exact video card installed on my 486-DX4, and I'm very happy with it. And based on the benchmarks I saw on YT for DOS gaming, the ET4000's performance is slightly better than this card. Also, the fact that it produces a very sharp image is a plus point in my book. So I don't understand the hate this card gets.

The 8900Ds are equal fastest with any late 32-bit card, but screen quality is bad on LCD. You can solder a straight link across the green coils (resistor shaped large components) and it actually doubles the brightness and removes most of the jail-bar effect.

dominusprog wrote on 2026-05-22, 19:00:

I have the same exact video card installed on my 486-DX4, and I'm very happy with it. And based on the benchmarks I saw on YT for DOS gaming, the ET4000's performance is slightly better than this card. Also, the fact that it produces a very sharp image is a plus point in my book. So I don't understand the hate this card gets.

The reason is most likely that the TVGA8900 series improved performance significantly over its development, without having significant looking name changes. TVGA 8900B is low performance budget crap, the TVGA8900C is quite OK, and TVGA8900CL and TVGA8900D typically manage to outperform the ISA bus, so the bus is the limit (as it is as well for the ET4000). People hating on Trident (myself included) base their judgement on TVGA8900B chips, or newer cards with less than 1024KB of video RAM. You need the full amount of RAM to get a 32-bit interface between the Trident chip and the video RAM. Note especially that the budget TVGA9000 series only has a 16-bit RAM interface and is limited to 512KB.

It's similar for OAK chips. I used to discern them all as slow duds, but I have one OAK 077 card that actually performs decently, yet still below ET4000AX levels. In the mean time I learned that the OAK 067 is (just like the TVGA9000) limited to 16 bit RAM interface, which seems to be a severe bottleneck, so all the OAK 067 cards and OAK 077 cards with less than 1MB are slow, but a good OAK 077 card will be good enough for a lot of things (although you might notice the difference in graphics-intensive games like Wolfenstein 3D; I wouldn't recommend Doom for a 25 MHZ 386 systems).

mkarcher wrote on 2026-05-23, 23:20:

dominusprog wrote on 2026-05-22, 19:00:

I have the same exact video card installed on my 486-DX4, and I'm very happy with it. And based on the benchmarks I saw on YT for DOS gaming, the ET4000's performance is slightly better than this card. Also, the fact that it produces a very sharp image is a plus point in my book. So I don't understand the hate this card gets.

The reason is most likely that the TVGA8900 series improved performance significantly over its development, without having significant looking name changes. TVGA 8900B is low performance budget crap, the TVGA8900C is quite OK, and TVGA8900CL and TVGA8900D typically manage to outperform the ISA bus, so the bus is the limit (as it is as well for the ET4000). People hating on Trident (myself included) base their judgement on TVGA8900B chips, or newer cards with less than 1024KB of video RAM. You need the full amount of RAM to get a 32-bit interface between the Trident chip and the video RAM. Note especially that the budget TVGA9000 series only has a 16-bit RAM interface and is limited to 512KB.

It's similar for OAK chips. I used to discern them all as slow duds, but I have one OAK 077 card that actually performs decently, yet still below ET4000AX levels. In the mean time I learned that the OAK 067 is (just like the TVGA9000) limited to 16 bit RAM interface, which seems to be a severe bottleneck, so all the OAK 067 cards and OAK 077 cards with less than 1MB are slow, but a good OAK 077 card will be good enough for a lot of things (although you might notice the difference in graphics-intensive games like Wolfenstein 3D; I wouldn't recommend Doom for a 25 MHZ 386 systems).

Yes, the naming for these early Trident cards isn't very good or logical. Anyway, I was talking about the 8900C, the same card installed on this system.

mkarcher wrote on 2026-05-23, 23:20:

dominusprog wrote on 2026-05-22, 19:00:

I have the same exact video card installed on my 486-DX4, and I'm very happy with it. And based on the benchmarks I saw on YT for DOS gaming, the ET4000's performance is slightly better than this card. Also, the fact that it produces a very sharp image is a plus point in my book. So I don't understand the hate this card gets.

The reason is most likely that the TVGA8900 series improved performance significantly over its development, without having significant looking name changes. TVGA 8900B is low performance budget crap, the TVGA8900C is quite OK, and TVGA8900CL and TVGA8900D typically manage to outperform the ISA bus, so the bus is the limit (as it is as well for the ET4000). People hating on Trident (myself included) base their judgement on TVGA8900B chips, or newer cards with less than 1024KB of video RAM. You need the full amount of RAM to get a 32-bit interface between the Trident chip and the video RAM. Note especially that the budget TVGA9000 series only has a 16-bit RAM interface and is limited to 512KB.

It's similar for OAK chips. I used to discern them all as slow duds, but I have one OAK 077 card that actually performs decently, yet still below ET4000AX levels. In the mean time I learned that the OAK 067 is (just like the TVGA9000) limited to 16 bit RAM interface, which seems to be a severe bottleneck, so all the OAK 067 cards and OAK 077 cards with less than 1MB are slow, but a good OAK 077 card will be good enough for a lot of things (although you might notice the difference in graphics-intensive games like Wolfenstein 3D; I wouldn't recommend Doom for a 25 MHZ 386 systems).

Yes a few years ago I had the 8900s written off as uninteresting due to the 8900B. But saw the light later. Interestingly, these Trident cards in general I found to be really sensitive to the hidden refresh CMOS setting in one motherboard, by about 30%, where it didn't make much difference on any other VGA I have tried. Also it is possible to have them set up wrongly, 8 Bit mode in a 16bit slot, forcing shadowing off or other issues, so always check the jumper settings. Even 8900B cards might not be as dog slow as they appear to be when you get all the settings right. i.e. they are a middle of the pack card, not the absolute worst.

I must have made mistakes in that vein years back, as I also had all WD/Paradise cards written off as dog slow turds, but people post good numbers with them. So either I had a very early, poorly implemented card, or one forced into 8 bit turtle mode. No longer being in possession of that card, it is a shame I cannot revisit it to determine exactly what the deal was.

Wow!

That is a nice system.

I thought SX due to the fact that the thing sat untouched, which such an expensive system probably wouldn’t have been.

On the other hand, if it were unsold stock, perhaps the fact that it is such an expensive system is the reason.

It is a really nice graphics card for the era (1024k was really not common in early 92) and 4 megs ram was expensive too. Being a DX, 2MB wasn’t an option and the whole thing was expensive anyway.

This is a seriously nice computer. I’d just fix the battery and put a sound card and a nic.

st31276a wrote on 2026-05-24, 13:43:

I thought SX due to the fact that the thing sat untouched, which such an expensive system probably wouldn’t have been.

It could have been a $1299 "real intel" when AMD DX40 systems which I described in my guesses were going for $899 in 92.. By time 93 rolled around, in the well served western markets, 386 machines were overflowing the warehouses in the 2nd half of the year as Compaq started a 486 price war, slashing prices... and the attractions of a "Multimedia PC" were bandied around, making CDROM and soundcard, had to haves. Even consumers without enough for the bargain basement, only just a 486 MPC could see how quickly the prices were coming down and thought, quite rightly, that they could get a better deal still in another 6 months.

Western Digital cards jump from bottom of the barrel to head of the pack between WD90C00 and WD90C30.