Depends of your requirements. Usually DX is faster, has cache on motherboard and can have more memory.

My plans for it, outside building another retro computer, is to use it to play those earlier games that were speed specific and needed a slower 386 like Wing Commander

Have you seen Phil's videos with Wing Commander at different processor speeds?
386 DX 25MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMt-bIm5bk

386 SX 33MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7wvTn-In0

386 DX 33MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T0qd-A6WU

386 DX 40MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqbhxhlN9_g

In a comment to the 386 DX 25MHz video, Phil says the frame rate in Wing Commander will suffer in the later levels with asteroids, enemies, and larger ships -- when there's more stuff on the screen.

Also, my brother's 386 was rated up to 25MHz but was never stable at that speed. He had to run it at 20MHz and games like Ultima Underworld were barely playable. Maybe the motherboards you linked to don't have this problem, but I'd rather have a little more headroom myself.

You might want to consider a 386 motherboard that can take a higher maximum processor speed than 25 mhz if Wing Commander is a priority.

was this game ever patched to use interrupts for drawing? it alomost as if this needed a 25 in the first levels and a 40mhz on last levels.

skitters wrote:

Have you seen Phil's videos with Wing Commander at different processor speeds? 386 DX 25MHz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMt […]
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Have you seen Phil's videos with Wing Commander at different processor speeds?
386 DX 25MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxMt-bIm5bk

386 SX 33MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7wvTn-In0

386 DX 33MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6T0qd-A6WU

386 DX 40MHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqbhxhlN9_g

In a comment to the 386 DX 25MHz video, Phil says the frame rate in Wing Commander will suffer in the later levels with asteroids, enemies, and larger ships -- when there's more stuff on the screen.

Also, my brother's 386 was rated up to 25MHz but was never stable at that speed. He had to run it at 20MHz and games like Ultima Underworld were barely playable. Maybe the motherboards you linked to don't have this problem, but I'd rather have a little more headroom myself.

You might want to consider a 386 motherboard that can take a higher maximum processor speed than 25 mhz if Wing Commander is a priority.

I have a 386 DX 40 MHZ Processor I could put on the board, but the 50 MHZ oscilator would keep it at 25 MHZ....would that help the issues you were mentioning with the 25 chip's stability?

In this case the DX motherboard isnt' a whole lot better because it has:
A) No L2 cache
B) A dreadful DTK BIOS
C) requires a propreitary memory board if you want to use more than 8MB in SIMMs

In this case I might go with the Biostar.

Those are the two I have right now to choose from.

Anyone know a good place to get one for a DX-40 for a good price outside EBay? Wanting to build this one just to build it as I have a 486 DX2 running fine and a 286 20. Just want to build a 386!

Smack2k wrote:

Those are the two I have right now to choose from.

Anyone know a good place to get one for a DX-40 for a good price outside EBay? Wanting to build this one just to build it as I have a 486 DX2 running fine and a 286 20. Just want to build a 386!

Check the last board in the FS post, maybe you find it useful: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)