Doornkaat wrote:What would those chips be good for? I mean you would be able to benchmark a very fast 486 but then what? Games that need faster […]
Show full quote
Anonymous Coward wrote:I have a pile of 5x86s and none of them are stable 180MHz. 180 with working cache is rare enough. 200MHz with the cache on is a pipe dream. Too bad nobody can reverse engineer a 486 on a smaller process and stick it on a PGA adapter to make a super upgrade CPU.
the3dfxdude wrote:How about tracking down someone from Cyrix to explain what it took to do the reverse engineering in the early 90s? I think that part can be done. From there it's making the higher frequency version manufacturable, which main barrier is going to be cost.
What would those chips be good for? I mean you would be able to benchmark a very fast 486 but then what? Games that need faster CPUs can be run on a Pentium or better. Even later games will require additional instructions and at some point the CPU is so restricted by bus bandwidths that increasing clock speeds won't do much for speed.
If you need more power than a real Am5x86 can deliver it's probably best to just change platforms.
A 1ghz 486 chip using 20 year old fabs would be possible and cost a couple bucks a chip in volume
It would be a small surface mount and need voltage regulator
If some other market had use for a small x86 it could be possible.
Would likely need to integrate on chip dram and more advanced multiplier control to be of much use