Anonymous Coward
Veteran Member
That's interesting. I always found it odd that Norton was the ONLY program that could properly identify my 15MHz V30 as a 15MHz V30. Well, now I know the real reason: pure coincidence!
They also gave Landmark 2.0 benchmark results, but Landmark appears to be a more simplistic clock speed test because it shows a 486DX/2-66 being drastically faster than a 486DX-50, while Norton SI actually shows the DX-50 being faster than the DX/2-66 due to its higher bus speed.
Also interesting is how easily a fast 286 can match or even beat a low-end 386. It makes sense, because when running real-mode code without any 386-specific optimizations (and without an L2 cache), the 386 is essentially equivalent to a 286 running at the same clock speed.
No! This is a real 486DX-50 we're talking about. Full 50 MHz bus speed, no clock multiplier! 8)But a DX-50 has a bus speed of 25MHz, not 33... Just like the DX4-100's are so named because they have, again, a 25MHz bus. Confused.
Yes, the "DX/4" should really be a "DX/3". BUT!!! You can also run a DX/4-100 in clock-doubled mode: 2 x 50 MHz instead of 3 x 33 MHz! Intel never really promoted that mode because it'll cause many VLB and PCI cards to crap out, just like the DX-50, but it does work and is not "overclocking" -- 2x50 was part of the design spec.DX/4 is a clock tripled, not clock quadrupled as the name implies. Therefore a 100MHz DX/4 has a 33MHz bus. There is also a 75MHz version that uses the 25MHz bus.
Perhaps it was because IBM beat them to the punch by releasing the first clock-tripled, 100 MHz x86 chip: the "Blue Lightning" 486BLX3-100.It made sense not to release a chip in between the DX/2 and the DX/4. The difference in performance would have been almost undetectable. The bigger mystery is why they kept the name DX/4 and didn't rename it DX/3 instead after the real DX/3 was canned. I've heard people say that "DX/4" gives the impression of being twice as fast as a DX/2.
Try SETUPRL /A ... which lets you adjust all the nitty-gritty details of the machine, just like advanced CMOS setup on a 386. It even lets you switch the built-in IDE-XT controller between PIO and DMA modes... that's the first time I've seen that on anything less than a 486! (PC-Check claims the stock 20 MB IDE-XT hard drive is running at 1:1 interleave, which is amazing for an XT-class machine!)Great find! The TL and RL series were always my favorites with the better graphics, better audio, and DOS in ROM. They're great for writing hairy assembler programs -- when you lock up the machine, just hit reset and you're back at the DOS prompt in 2 seconds.
Perhaps it was because IBM beat [Intel] to the punch by releasing the first clock-tripled, 100 MHz x86 chip: the "Blue Lightning" 486BLX3-100...