Unboxing and upgrading (er, sidegrading?) the Woodgrain 486 with an actual 486 processor again. No more Pentium. This CPU is the venerable DX4-100, new old stock!
The 90s really were a time if you bought a computer, it'd truly be 'outdated' in six months, or at least partially outdated. My PC now is six *years* old, and there's honestly no reason to replace it.
@maxxdahl6062 It was an extremely popular computer, so it was supported until the day Commodore collapsed- but by that time, there were "electronic organizers", calculators and updated Game Boy type devices with specs similar to/ better than the C64.
Same, but feel blessed that I lived to witness some of the most exciting advances in computer technology. The pace of change seems to have slowed in recent years.
Funny you should upload this vid today.....I just found, in amongst my collection of old PC hardware, a motherboard that has a socket 7 with compatibility for Intel, AMD, Cyrix, as well as some named IDT Winchip, and something called RISE MP6. Ever heard of them? The only processors I own that should work in it are Intel Pentium MMX's, and a few AMD K6-2's, but I'm curious about the others....
It seemed annoying until the fancy PnP stuff failed you and you wished you still had jumpers. I don't mind explicitly configuring stuff. It was also generally better for DOS, since PnP usually required drivers or TSRs. I hated PnP until it got good enough to be totally transparent. Even then, early jumperless motherboards could be very finicky.
@@Breakfast_and_Bullets He did a funny imitation of Steve in part of one of his videos a while ago. I think it was it was on his main channel; can't remember. I actually found Steve's channel from that lol
If I remember correctly, the Pentium overdrive was the same basic performance as a 486 dx4 100 (as seen here) but it included the additional instruction set of the Pentium. So if for some reason, software really required a Pentium cpu to work, that was your solution. A lot of people bought the Pentium over drive thinking it was better than the 486 and it was not.
Well it was faster...but it was more for keeping an old office PC alive for a few more years..than a serious upgrade. PC's were hellishly expensive even for basic PC's back then...it was a cheapish upgrade.
@@brokeandtired Had to chuckle at this comment. Price is relative, and back in the day, early 90s, the price was WAY more reasonable than during the latter half of the 80s, we're talking 8088 through 80386 class. That 80386 was hellish indeed, the "Compaq 386" was a dream out of reach.
@lungshadow The FSB and the external cache was always the weak link that only really improved when the L2 cache was integrated onto the cpu. The memory controller was more often than not the main culprit where there was only about a third of the expected bandwidth vs what the ram of the period was often rated for.
@@hugiee The move to a 32-bit bus meant the 386 needed a much more expensive motherboard and RAM setup too, same situation as going from 486 to Pentium (which externally moved to 64-bit which means a more expensive chipset, ram and board design).
I bought one of these as a 13-year old, over optimistic kid and then proceeded to try to install it in the wrong socket, bending the outside pins. Lucky for me the store owner was good sports about it and was able to bend them back and gave me a full refund.
I remember getting a Pentium 63Mhz Overdrive Processor for my IBM PS/2, upgrading from a 486/66. It actually didn't work initially, we fortunately lived near a Microcenter and one of the associates informed us that we needed a new bios for the new cpu to work. $10 and 1 new eprom later and I was rocking Command And Conquer Red Alert like it was my job. How I miss the good old days.
A LOOOONG time ago, I had a 486-DX50 that I could overclock to 66MHz on an older VL-BUS mobo. I had to physically replace the oscillator to do so. So front side, processor bus AND cache ran AT 66MHz. It smoked my DX4-120 in most CAD and math operations. It's amazing how, back in the day, FSB was KING! I had CAD customers who insisted on using PentiumPro 233MHz even after the PII-400's came out. The PII's used 66MHz cache bus, whereas the PPro's used native FSB for the cache clock. They really slayed!
I will always fondly remember the very first time I fired up Quake and watched in awe the dark goodness of the Necropolis demo in all its glory on my 166MHz Cyrix system back in 1998 after unpacking 17 pirated ARJ-compressed diskettes. Aaah, good times!
I remember buying 22 disks from PC WORLD thinking that I had to put the RAR files on discs, when I downloaded Terminator : Skynet from an FTP site. It was later that day I found the .nfo file and felt like a complete twat... What a game though! Played surprisingly well on the AMD PR-133 I was using at the time. Actually ended up buying the game. Like any honest Pirate should! ARRRR!
I worked in a PC store when those CPUs were hot... We used to call the DX4-100 and DX4-120 processors "Pentium killers". Significantly cheaper, and worked just as well on CURRENT FOR THE TIME software.
@@TheT0nedude Floating point games didn't really exist at the time. If you bought a pentium for FPU performance that would only have been justified with CAD or something that actually used floating point.
Ooh, many questions would need to be answered for this: How long is it guaranteed for, what happens if it fails? Is there a like for like replacement or does it have to be something of equal or better value. At today's prices, of course. LOL. Methinks someone would need to be a time-traveller to get the exact same product in some cases as the item being registered could be almost impossible to source? What information does one put onto the card - information when one purchased it or information relevant to today. I think the funniest answer would be what store did you get this from? Can that store get some props for selling it to you? Where do you send/take it if the store is no more? And finally, how long IS a lifetime guarantee? LOL. So long as they didn't want a receipt... LOL. (Sorry comment is a bit long).
It depends if the box/address is still open and if USPS honors the business reply agreement they had back then (if you didn't need a stamp). Sorry to be the fun police, I work for the mail 😂
if I remember correctly there were a rash of 'Fake write back cache" motherboards by dubious manufactures back in the day that were poor performers. One of the caveats was the bus speed as well. You could get better performance from a native 486 @ 33Mhz than a Pentium Overdrive @ 25Mhz. Thanks for the great video, I had forgotten much about my early years as a system builder back then, a lot of forgotten knowledge that was completely useless until now.
Yep there was indeed, I was one of the people that ended up buying one and not knowing till later! I don't remember the make of it but I later on found out that the cache ram was fake despite it saying it had 256 kb Write -back at bootup (rigged bios I assume) as a test program or two that I used said it was 0 kb! Couple that with the 'It's ST' DX2-50 Cyrix clone I had on it and it was probably quite a bit slower than it should've been!
Woot Woodgrain 486, er Pentium upgrade video. Time to update my play list Maybe I'll binge watch the whole play list tonight... Edit Yup I ended up rewatching the while Woodgrain saga
I bought one of these new in 95 or 96. Made a huge difference over what I had before (33?). This was the best era for the PC.. when you could just plunk in a different CPU and see a major change. PCs are plenty powerful today but they're not as fun as they used to be.
Yup. _That_ era of massive performance gains with just a CPU swap. Systems back then were more CPU-bound, too. Todays are more diversified, thus less "spectacular" when upgrading single parts (unless you know what kind of performance you're looking after). _sigh_ I miss those times.
CPU upgrades aren't dead... at least on AMD if you buy into a new socket architecture there's a good chance you'll be able to pop in a chip 2 generations later. I went from a Athlon 64x2 to an AthlonIIx4 on AM2+ and recently from a Ryzen 1600 to a Ryzen 3700X on AM4. But yeah it's still not quite like popping in a 486 that's literally 3x faster. sigh.
@@marcusborderlands6177 I've noticed big gains going from an ancient i7-920 to a Ryzen 5.. but it still doesn't feel quite as across the board dramatic as it did back when I was upgrading in the late 80s and early 90s.
@@TechTimeTraveller in terms of general OS "feel" (i guess thats the term?) its not that big of a difference, but games and programs run WAYYYYY faster on modern cpus, although a 920 was a decent cpu to begin with. If you just want that feeling of everything being wayyyy faster, try slapping in an ssd, felt like when i went from a single core pentium to a 3 core phenom back in the day lol
If you want the fastest Intel 486, you should get a DX4 with the &EW print on it. It has a slightly improved core and faster cache. And it should run in Write Back.
After Clint mentioned that the accessory pack didn't include Instant Coffee Type 2, I was waiting for him to say "now let's get this onto a tray...NICE!"
Few DOS games made extensive use of floating point, Quake being the one major exception which is why it tends to run way better on Pentium systems over 486 systems. If you can get Quake working on a different mobo with both CPUs then you might be able to test that out yourself better. I know, 8.1 to 10.2 FPS may not seem like a big jump but that's literally a 25% boost in the framerate! (Plus that could've also been bottlenecked by the graphics card in that test.)
About this "iCOMP® Index" - I guess that those benchmarks also doing some floating point tests. Pentium was slightly faster "clock per clock" than 486'es in integer operations (that's why 83Mhz Pentium Overdrive is more or less the same as 100Mhz 486), but it was WAY faster in floating point operations (famously: that's why Quake was running so much better on Pentiums). Thing is, that back in the 90s, floating point calculations were used rather sparsly, even in benchmarks - so I guess all those benchmarks that gave comparable performance were mostly integer based. I bet Pentium would be much faster in some floating point benchmarks. Quake would probably show a difference - but it didn't work sadly... Also: Pentium Overdrive would be slower than "real" Pentiums with PCI bus, newer motherboards - so that has to be counted as well.
You are right. Only Quake in the games he tested used FPA. Most game of that era were doing their "floating" calculus on fixed arithmetic... which is Integer based... Doom did so, Build based games too, so a pentium didn't made the cut for those.
Pentium has two pipelines, optimized microcode, better cache architecture, some instructions hardwired so much faster. Pentium optimized code is at least 2x faster than 486 clock-for-clock for integer.
The Floating Point checks were interesting. I guess they were put in to reassure people that Intal could make a fully working FPU, unlike the ones they put in the original Pentiums. At the time I saw a funny spoof story along the lines of 2000.8977889 An Intel Space Odyssey. "Open the cargo bay doors HAL. :- No I will kill you like I killed the other 2.83 crew" :-)
@@emmanueloverrated Build used a little bit of floating point for some setup for slopes. It really hurts you on an 486SX system (with no FPU), but isn't enough to really benefit pentium greatly over a DX system. You can search the source code for Doom though and you'll only find a single float instruction in there and it is not used when compiling for X86.
@@soylentgreenb Of course when talking about a subject like that, we infer the critical parts, not the routines that are nearly never called nor those impacting the frame rate. You're right about Doom. I messed with its source code back them, the arithmetic is very well done.
Maybe you're banging up against the FPM memory speed. You have to keep the processor fed with instructions and data (ignoring I/D Caches). Also WB cache can help but there's issues with exclusion ranges for DMA on devices. Is there a way to set exclusion ranges for I/O memory used by DMA devices?
When I was working on those systems when they were new, I always found the SIS chipset boards to be a bit slower. Also, found that not all cache chip configurations and cache vendors the same. Max cache memory on some of those boards also slowed them down slightly in some configurations.
I don't know if anybody else mentioned it and I know I'm late to the party, but the front-side bus being 32 bit is a big downside from the later Pentium motherboards. 33 MHz at 32 bits is 133 MB/s (same as PCI) while 33 MHz at 64 bits is 266 MB/s. No matter how tight you configure your memory, your FSB is going to get in the way.
Can't beat a fast 486, I remember a friend of mine having a DX4-120 when we'd all moved to pentiums. It was still hanging in there and cool even back then :D Love the little steve1984 nod there too ;)
@Mat Speedle Heck yeah, I had one too, a cyrix chip, and as long as the games or programs didn't look at processor type, only speed, I could run stuff meant for pentium 90/100. Good time for building PC's back then for sure. 👍
Intel at that time: "we called it Overdrive because it's FFFAAASSSSTTT!!!!!" Also modern Processor's hitting over 5ghz: well that's a nifty clock, wonder what I can do with dried ice"
Has to be one of the most bizarre 90s upgrades ever. I was selling Socket 7 white box systems at the time and I would have people bring these in wanting a K5 upgrade. Like they thought they could put a K5 on top of their overdrive.
The firtst gen of Pentiums were not worth the upgrade and the overdrives were even worse. I went from a 486 DX4 100 system to a pentium 90 system back in the day and was really disappointed for how much it cost me. The Pentiums didn't get really good until they hit 200mhz and games were written for them. 👍
Man this gave me flashbacks to when Quake came out & it ran like garbage on the mid-range computers of the time. It was like, oh you need to buy a new computer to run Quake at a playable speed. I was like: why? this game sucks!
First Name: Duke. Last Name: Nukem. Current address: etc? Some months pass by after Clint has posted the warranty. Junk mail starts appearing (at Clint's address even though he used a more relevant one for DN). Dear Mr Nukem thank you for filling in and returning the warranty card for the... are you aware for a further $$ we can offer you a free upgrade to the device you registered with us today. Simply call us on... LOL.
Results aren't that bad for write-through cached processor. Although (correct me if I'm wrong, please!) EVERY DX4-100 should be write-back enabled. Most decent boards did support write-back cache back then, too. At least my DX-33 powered Shuttle cheapo board already did. Enabling write-back cache uplifted performance quite a bit. I think that's why the woodgrain is underperforming a litte.
Wish I could find my original Packard Bell that had a similar processor. My first computer was a 25mhz 486 sx which later got upgraded to 100mhz dx4. We probably got a cheaper off-brand version though.
I had a self built 486 DX2-50 back in the 90's (first PC that I built myself), it ran a Cyrix clone "It's ST" cpu. I eventually put it in to a computer place I used to get it upgraded to a DX4-120 but they were broken into on the weekend my PC was there and a bunch were stolen including mine! I got the option of the DX4-120 (I assume it was the AMD cpu) or a Pentium 75 on their insurance so I went with the Pentium 75, I sometimes wonder what sort of speed the DX4-120 would've been though in comparison.
@@sierraboney1394 my second computer was a Packard Bell Pentium 75mhz and it felt a bit faster. I did not have a benchmark at the time but just in use it certainly felt faster than the 100mhz. Probably on par with a 120mhz 486 provided the rest of the computer matches the socket 7 variety for the Pentium. That is to say it may come down to the motherboard.
What did you do when you discovered that Duke Nukem’ voice ability? Did your have an inner Duke moment? Was it pivotal? It certainly must have been pretty cool.
Nothing on that system is bottlenecking the POD, besides the actual software you are running. If you were able to run and benchmark Quake (which takes full benefit of the POD floating point unit improvements and instruct set) you would probably see 15 fps, which would be a huge improvement over the DX4 overdrive. Another thing is the WB cache, on older systems is a hit and miss thing to get it working, most motherboards just get stuck at boot. The POD supports WB internal cache and if you were able to switch it on you would see a couple of extra frames per second in most games.
I had a 486dx PC back in the day. A year or two later I upgraded the CPU to a 586 133 mhz. I remember the game Descent running so much faster. It went from like 4 FPS to very playable. Great upgrade.- Would do again.
If i remember correctly the performance is lower do to the 25MHz bus compared to the 33MHz bus.. not sure though.. try a higher bus with lower multiplier and se :)
This has always been my favorite 486... I "found" one in middle school in 98 or so. Going from a 486sx2 66, to a dx4 100... damn it was fast... making coffee and such way faster.. lol
WIndows 95, 100MHz 486, 32Mb of RAM => My childhood. Played Diablo, Starcraft, Civ 2, Mist, NHL 97, XCOM and Age of Empires for days on end on that thing! Ohhhh, the memories!
Quick question. I'm sure there's probably no straightforward answer to this. But how long will various storage media retain it's data over time if it's stored in ideal conditions? Staring with a 3.5 inch floppy, how long can one of those retain the data written on them if they're stored in a cool, dry, clean environment? What about a mechanical hard drive? SSD? Thumb drive? NVMe drive?
I don't think there could ever be a 'straightforward' answer to this, as it would depend on too many (forever) unknown factors. To mention just a few, the quality of the materials used by the manufacturer, the way data was put onto the device, how many times it had/has been used before or since writing the data... The defragmentation of the device (mech hard drive), how it is/was/would be stored and a whole lot more. I could have put a silly answer here but I chose to try and give a more suitable one.
Biggest performance jump i ever felt was going from a late era pentium 4 to a Core2Duo e6700. Literally breathed new life into windows, everything felt insanely faster. I think back to pentium 4's and recall them as the dark ages of desktop computing.
If you forgot about Pentium 4 and just go AMD route you had amazing machines. AMD Athlon XP CPUs were very fast and afordable. Was a great time to build machines at time.
