The glorious 80486...

[MM007]

I have been expirimenting with computers for some time, building cheap older models and the like, and I have discovered one constant truth, esp in the later 486 generation chips:

The 80486 is much more stable.

I once ran Windows 98 First Edition on an Intel 80486 DX-2 66MHz(bare minimum processor requirements), 16MB RAM, and a 500MB HDD. It NEVER crashed. I tried the same on various Pentiums and 486s with both 95 and 98. The results were always the same with the 486s, while my Pentiums crashed regularly.

I have heard that the 486 is just of a better design than the 80501(Pentium Socket 4), and even the 80502(Pentium Sockets 5 and 7). Is this true?

I have run Win 9X on various Pentiums from all eras and socket types ranging from the infamous 60MHz(See: Floating Point Bug) to 233 MHz with MMX. NONE are as rock stable as that little 486 was, chugging along at 98's minimum requirements. In fact, the same held true, amazingly, for my old 350MHz P-II, my 733MHz P-III, and even my current 900MHz Celeron. As long as I didn't run more requirements than the RAM and processor could handle, that old 80486 is more stable in 9X than all of them...

Those last 3 may be flukes, but I dunno...

[Geebs61]

I ran 98 on a Socket 3 with a pentium overdrive chip clocking in at 133mhz and it was stable as anything I have ever used. I HAD to upgrade as you would imagine, but that was the first computer that was actually my own and no one elses. I wrote my first emulators on that thing... I almost miss it. Wait I still have it somewhere.

[MM007]

I ran 98 on a Socket 3 with a pentium overdrive chip clocking in at 133mhz and it was stable as anything I have ever used. I HAD to upgrade as you would imagine, but that was the first computer that was actually my own and no one elses. I wrote my first emulators on that thing... I almost miss it. Wait I still have it somewhere.

Yeah. I have a rule. I always keep at LEAST one 486 board/DX-2 processor = or >66MHz/RAM combo around. I don't have that rule for any other computer type.
My first box was a Pentium 120, OC'd to 133. My next was a 486, though. That 486 worked better than the Pentium did even when it was still at normal clock(not that the jump from 120MHz to 133MHz made any noticable differences in performance, good or bad. I was just learning to overclock then. ^^)

BTW, I also read that an AMD DX-4 133MHz can kick the crap out of a Pentium 75 in benchmarking tests. ^^

Part of the problems the early Pentiums had were the high FSB speeds.

They could barely get a 486 40MHz FSB to work, and they were trying to get FSBs of 60 and 66 MHz out of the earliest Pentiums(Socket 4), and 50, 60, and 66MHz out of the Sockets 5. The technology wasn't quite up to the task of doing it reliably at the time. That alone, however, doesn't explain why my 486 was more stable than even my best Pentium MMX processors.

BTW, if you are considering a 40MHz FSB 486, don't bother unless you have m4d 1337 ski11z(or a DX-40, since those were the odd exception to the rule). Stick with 25, 30, and 33 MHz 486 FSB. Your computer will be much happier.

[Guest]

I think many early Pentium boards had flaky voltage regulators. 486 era chips werent nearly as sensitive to that.