Test it out. Let us know how it goes.

I can't really compare the motherboards I have directly because not all of them accepts same cpus. Like for example my current main 486 pc only accepts 5V 486 and I doubt slow 486 cpu would bring out the speed differences between motherboards.

Speed kings are the late UMC888x and SiS49x based boards, which are PCI only except for boards like the PCChips M919(UMC 888x) which seems to be up to par performance wise.

Users of this board may have more info on the PCI vs VESA performance gap should there exist one.

I'd just use something like Doom timedemo for benchmarks. I'm also sure that if you post some other benchmarks, people here will be happy to tell you how's your system doing.

amadeus777999 wrote:

Speed kings are the late UMC888x and SiS49x based boards, which are PCI only except for boards like the PCChips M919(UMC 888x) which seems to be up to par performance wise.

Users of this board may have more info on the PCI vs VESA performance gap should there exist one.

I have only one board with both PCI and VLB slots, an Asus PVI-486SP3. It's a SiS496 one and based on this and other SiS496 boards I don't even understand the chipset's reputation here. I give it that (pimped up with 1MB of L2 cache) it has nice general speed but when it comes to VGA access it's simply abysmal. Especially compared to UMC888x which is regarded as a fast chipset and ALI M1487/89 which is never mentioned around here. But in 3DBench I could reach the best Am5x86-160 result (103 fps) with an Abit AB-PB4 board and 256kB of 12ns L2 cache. This is about the fastest realistically obtainable (Cx5x86-133 is really a unicorn, as another thread called it lately) 486.

Back to the Asus VIP board, its VLB speed is somewhat faster (like 20-22 MBps in Landmark instead of the 12-15 with PCI cards that give 30+ in the ALI board at 40MHz!) so it's a good match for that system.

In PCPBench VGA speed doesn't dominate this much so a SiS496 with 1MB cache (MS-4144 this time) and slow PCI takes the cake. But I don't know if I have results for the chipsets with the same CPU and same amount of cache. My Shuttle HOT-433 (UMC888x) is equipped with 512k for a bit better performance, just like my

(Note for self: It's time to copy the benchmark files from my DOS7.1 HDD to have exact numbers. And especially Doom benchmarks because that may be more relevant than 3DBench.)

Bottom line: I haven't seen instability or particularly slow performance with my only VIP board (Asus PVI-486SP3) - it's just slow at PCI VGA access because the chipset (SiS496) itself is. And VLB is faster with this specific board - but PCI itself has much more potential with other (UMC, ALI) chipsets because of the faster, more modern cards.

Baoran wrote:

I have seen in many threads that 486 motherboards with both PCI and VLB slots are pretty bad/slow/unstable. Someone gave me today a dirty 486 pc without case cover. I thought that perhaps I will at least get a working AT PSU and a free 486 cpu.
It seems to have FIC 486-VIP-IO motherboard with ISA, PCI and VLB slots. What kind of price you really have to pay for the versatility of being able to use all kind of cards? What kind of experiences you have of this kind of motherboards?
I already have 2 other 486 motherboards and I am wondering if this motherboard is worth keeping or not.

I didn't test it speedwise (I have some reservations about the purpose of testing hardware that old for speed) but I think it is a lovely board with quality build. It has PS/2 mouse support, 72 pin memory, coin battery, on board IO, It's latest BIOS version has no 8GB HDD limit (IIRC. Only missing thing I would really like it to have but missing was a flash BIOS (later revisions have it but mine hasn't), and ZIF socket. I was sad when mine died a few years ago.

Here is the copy of official site for BIOS and manuals:

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/ftp.f … tw/motherboard/

I suspect a lot of the issues with VIP-IO boards are related to 40MHz bus speeds, which can be problematic in pure VLB settings, but when combining VLB and PCI it also either causes extra latency if the two buses are run asynchonously, negatively impacting performace or it overclocks the PCI by 20%, which tends not to be stable. For the same underlying reason 25MHz will be stable, but either introduces even worse asynch latencies or underclocks the PCI bus badly. I've never had issues with VIP-IO running at 33MHz in any event.

alvaro84 wrote:

I have only one board with both PCI and VLB slots, an Asus PVI-486SP3. It's a SiS496 one and based on this and other SiS496 boar […]
Show full quote

amadeus777999 wrote:

Speed kings are the late UMC888x and SiS49x based boards, which are PCI only except for boards like the PCChips M919(UMC 888x) which seems to be up to par performance wise.

Users of this board may have more info on the PCI vs VESA performance gap should there exist one.

I have only one board with both PCI and VLB slots, an Asus PVI-486SP3. It's a SiS496 one and based on this and other SiS496 boards I don't even understand the chipset's reputation here. I give it that (pimped up with 1MB of L2 cache) it has nice general speed but when it comes to VGA access it's simply abysmal. Especially compared to UMC888x which is regarded as a fast chipset and ALI M1487/89 which is never mentioned around here. But in 3DBench I could reach the best Am5x86-160 result (103 fps) with an Abit AB-PB4 board and 256kB of 12ns L2 cache. This is about the fastest realistically obtainable (Cx5x86-133 is really a unicorn, as another thread called it lately) 486.

Back to the Asus VIP board, its VLB speed is somewhat faster (like 20-22 MBps in Landmark instead of the 12-15 with PCI cards that give 30+ in the ALI board at 40MHz!) so it's a good match for that system.

In PCPBench VGA speed doesn't dominate this much so a SiS496 with 1MB cache (MS-4144 this time) and slow PCI takes the cake. But I don't know if I have results for the chipsets with the same CPU and same amount of cache. My Shuttle HOT-433 (UMC888x) is equipped with 512k for a bit better performance, just like my

(Note for self: It's time to copy the benchmark files from my DOS7.1 HDD to have exact numbers. And especially Doom benchmarks because that may be more relevant than 3DBench.)

Bottom line: I haven't seen instability or particularly slow performance with my only VIP board (Asus PVI-486SP3) - it's just slow at PCI VGA access because the chipset (SiS496) itself is. And VLB is faster with this specific board - but PCI itself has much more potential with other (UMC, ALI) chipsets because of the faster, more modern cards.

Interesting info. I haven't tinkered with the 486 boards much in recent times but the SiS496 ones always struck me as fast in general and robust in regards to memory, cache and bus speeds.

You're absolutely right that the PCI speed is not up to par to the UMC based board, but due to this it may be better for some outlandish clockspeeds. The LS486Es that I have work at 60/66mhz fsb with Matrox cards at full pci speed. I guess the chipset uses in general "slow" timings for the PCI bus. Not every SiS49x based board is that robust/fast of course. The Zida(49x) board that I had would not allow for the fastest memory timings after 40mhz, no matter which ram stick.

I do not know about this specific version of the Ali chipset but I have to keep an eye out - should I come across one I'll buy it.

Gfx Card: Matrox MilleniumII
Cpu: Am5x86 ADZ@150
==============================
GA-486AM/S@50fsb/PCI(1:1)
DoomSW - 1060 rtics( 70.4fps ) | demo3<fullscreen-2>
DoomRetail - 703 rtics( fps 40.7 ) | demo4<fullscreen>
DoomII - 3069 rtics( fps 50.9 ) | demo3<fullscreen>
3DBench2 - 101.6 fps
Speedsys - VESA 51 MB
Speedsys - L1/L2/MemAvg. - 111 / 77 / 56 MB

Hot433@50fsb/PCI(1:1)
DoomSW - 1060 rtics( 70.4fps ) | demo3<fullscreen-2>
DoomRetail - 701 rtics( fps 40.8 ) | demo4<fullscreen>
DoomII - 3069 rtics( fps 50.9 ) | demo3<fullscreen>
3DBench2 - 101.6 fps
Speedsys - VESA 54 MB
Speedsys - L1/L2/MemAvg. - 110 / 76 / 56 MB

LS486E@50mhz/PCI(1:1)
DoomSW - 1104 rtics( fps 67.6 ) | demo3<fullscreen-2>
DoomRetail - 717 rtics( fps 39.9 ) | demo4<fullscreen>
DoomII - 3209 rtics( fps 48.7 ) | demo3<fullscreen>
3DBench2 - 93.9 fps
Speedsys - VESA 33 MB
Speedsys - L1/L2/MemAvg. - 141 / 69 / 58 MB

Gfx Card: Matrox MilleniumII
Cpu: intelDX4/WB@133mhz
==============================
LS486E@66mhz/PCI(1:1) <2nd level cache disabled>
DoomSW - 1104 rtics( fps 64.8 ) | demo3<fullscreen-2>
DoomRetail - 752 rtics( fps 38.0 ) | demo4<fullscreen>
DoomII - 3350 rtics( fps 46.7 ) | demo3<fullscreen>
3DBench2 - 97.8 fps
Speedsys - VESA 43 MB
Speedsys - L1/L2/MemAvg. - 140 / - / 75 MB
<WriteSpeed of 139.5MB in cachechk>

tayyare wrote:

I didn't test it speedwise (I have some reservations about the purpose of testing hardware that old for speed) but I think it is […]
Show full quote

Baoran wrote:

I have seen in many threads that 486 motherboards with both PCI and VLB slots are pretty bad/slow/unstable. Someone gave me today a dirty 486 pc without case cover. I thought that perhaps I will at least get a working AT PSU and a free 486 cpu.
It seems to have FIC 486-VIP-IO motherboard with ISA, PCI and VLB slots. What kind of price you really have to pay for the versatility of being able to use all kind of cards? What kind of experiences you have of this kind of motherboards?
I already have 2 other 486 motherboards and I am wondering if this motherboard is worth keeping or not.

I didn't test it speedwise (I have some reservations about the purpose of testing hardware that old for speed) but I think it is a lovely board with quality build. It has PS/2 mouse support, 72 pin memory, coin battery, on board IO, It's latest BIOS version has no 8GB HDD limit (IIRC. Only missing thing I would really like it to have but missing was a flash BIOS (later revisions have it but mine hasn't), and ZIF socket. I was sad when mine died a few years ago.

Here is the copy of official site for BIOS and manuals:

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/ftp.f … tw/motherboard/

What do you mean by missing flash bios? Does it mean that bios can't be flashed?
PS/2 port might be interesting because my other 486 boards don't have one. Any idea where I could get a ps/2 port for it that works with the header on the motherboard?

Here is a picture of the pc. It did come with a cd-rom, but no hard drive. I have not done anything to it yet.