Great card. I have it in my 486 and it is very fast. Search some of my posts for some benchmark results. I also put it in Phil's VGA Benchmark Database. I believe the only thing you'd gain by adding the second meg of RAM is additional higher resolutions/color depths, which shouldn't matter in DOS, but might if you run Win3.1 and want a higher res/color depth.

edit: I should mention mine is a Genoa brand, but uses the CL-GD5428 chipset like the one you pictured.

Yup, I have a Diamond SpeedStar Pro VLB in my 486, which uses the same CL chip. They were very good performers back in the day. 1 MB is probably enough for a 486, because most games only support 320x200 or 320x240... or they would be too slow to run in the kind of high resolution that would require more than 1 MB of memory.
Mine is 1 MB as well, and I never felt the need for more (except for Windows, as mentioned).

Got a Genoa 8500VL 1MB VLB card in my 486DX2... it's a rebranded Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426. It's great.

Here is a review of a CL-GD5429 based card by Great Hierophant:
Nerdly Pleasures; Meet a Better Video Card

I have two CL-GD5428 VLB cards and am happy with those. Cannot compare it to S3 based cards etc. myself, as I don't own any.

Cirrus logic 542x aren't the fastest but are solid performers in DOS. They usually compare to S3 805. They are both just good enough as Windows accelerators.

It all depends on what you're after of course 😉

At the end of the day I'm just looking for a solid performer nothing high-end. It looks like I might go with this card if someone can just clarify whether or not this is an OEM card or retail card. Like I said before, I would prefer something retail since all of the other parts in my 486 build will be retail parts.

Hard to tell without knowing the history of the card. It doesnt have any OEM stickers but that really doesnt mean anything. It looks any any other Cirrus Logic cards iv ever seen 😀

BrAlZy wrote:

It looks like I might go with this card if someone can just clarify whether or not this is an OEM card or retail card.

I think it's impossible to tell.
Back in those days, the difference between OEM and retail was often how things were packaged. OEM was just a bunch of cards in antistatic bags, shipped by the boxload (that's what OEM originally meant: only the bare-bones requirements for system builders). Retail was the same card, but in a nice retail box, bundled with manuals, software etc.
If the card didn't come with a box, it might be impossible to tell whether it was originally a retail card or not. It would also be irrelevant, since the card itself would be identical.

I think it wasn't until later, probably somewhere in the later PCI era, that certain manufacturers specifically started to make 'OEM' models of cards, which had lower clockspeeds and/or other specs to reduce prices.

Did you try the FCC search...

Scali wrote:

I think it's impossible to tell. Back in those days, the difference between OEM and retail was often how things were packaged. O […]
Show full quote

BrAlZy wrote:

It looks like I might go with this card if someone can just clarify whether or not this is an OEM card or retail card.

I think it's impossible to tell.
Back in those days, the difference between OEM and retail was often how things were packaged. OEM was just a bunch of cards in antistatic bags, shipped by the boxload (that's what OEM originally meant: only the bare-bones requirements for system builders). Retail was the same card, but in a nice retail box, bundled with manuals, software etc.
If the card didn't come with a box, it might be impossible to tell whether it was originally a retail card or not. It would also be irrelevant, since the card itself would be identical.

I think it wasn't until later, probably somewhere in the later PCI era, that certain manufacturers specifically started to make 'OEM' models of cards, which had lower clockspeeds and/or other specs to reduce prices.

I had a feeling, I just figured if somebody recognized the card they'd be able to tell me.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Did you try the FCC search...

Searching it up returned the following: Quantum Designs (HK) Ltd VGA VESA Local Bus Card(Max. Res. 1280 X 1024 Non-Interlaced). I would naturally assume but if anybody knows more that'd be great. I might look it up in old magazines via Google Books.

I would not care about Retail/OEM myself in this case.
What matters more:
- Memory upgrade sockets - check
- Compact design and SMD components - check
- Latest BIOS version v1.41 - don't know?
- Does it work properly - don't know?

gerwin wrote:

I would not care about Retail/OEM myself in this case. What matters more: - Memory upgrade sockets - check - Compact design and […]
Show full quote

I would not care about Retail/OEM myself in this case.
What matters more:
- Memory upgrade sockets - check
- Compact design and SMD components - check
- Latest BIOS version v1.41 - don't know?
- Does it work properly - don't know?

Yes and yes to the last two. So I guess I will go with this card. I just feel that a retail card would complement this upcoming build.

Like it was already said. Retail/OEM in those days didn't mean anything about the cards itself. If you don't get it boxed then even retail card won't have a real meaning.

kixs wrote:

Like it was already said. Retail/OEM in those days didn't mean anything about the cards itself. If you don't get it boxed then even retail card won't have a real meaning.

True, I guess I won't let me bug me...