For $5, every 486 board is worth buying. The sram cache chips alone are worth that much.

Yep, 5$ is always a good deal.

I personally avoid:

- Opti based 486 boards;
- PCI 486 boards (just my personal preference, I just think a proper 486 is VLB or ISA only);
- Barrel battery - but if there was no leak AT ALL, I would make an exception.

I also hate if there are any unused spaces on the board - as those on the first two boards.

I think the last one is the best: SIS, VLB, double cache-banks, 3.3v support (I see the voltage regulator). The only donwside: the battery. I'm not sure if it didn't leaked already.

Um...for $5 each, I'd scoop them all up before someone else grabs them, then figure out which are best. You'd normally be hardpressed to get one board for $20.

I wouldn't even think about it and buy all of them. Untested 486s normally sell on eBay for 20 or more.

Buy it - you can sort them out later.
The board with a 496/97 chipset is most likely the winner here(fast + PCI bus).

I liked the second motherboard, does someone have ever seen this NIHT chipset? If this is somekind of of obscure chipset a benchmark would be very interesting.

You mean HiNT chipset? I see them now and then, they're not too rare.

At that price I'd buy them all no question.

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mmm did you get them all?

My favorite out of the pack is the sis871 VLB for a build, though the old battery needs to be removed pronto. I'm also in the party of preferring a Pentium over a PCI 486 board but for $5 it's a steal. All of those boards can be resold for a profit if you buy for $5.