ggvvgg@mixcom.UUCP (Dave Fenske) (12/29/90)
I'm getting behind in rumors. Wasn't there supposed to be a 50 MHz 386 or 486 chip to be released by Intel? Anybody know the story on it? DF
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (01/02/91)
In <145@mixcom.UUCP>, ggvvgg@mixcom.UUCP (Dave Fenske) wrote: > I'm getting behind in rumors. Wasn't there supposed to be a 50 MHz > 386 or 486 chip to be released by Intel? Anybody know the story on > it? I suggest that comp.sys.intel is a better newsgroup for this query. But in any case: There will almost certainly not be a 50MHz 386 from Intel. Intel appears poised to try the 286 -> 386sx trick over again, this time with 386 -> 486. Keep in mind that the 386 is an old design - it should be much easier to make a 486 run at 50MHz than a 386. I'm not so sure that the marketing trick will work this time, but then there wasn't any good reason for it to work last time either. I've seen 33MHz 486s run at 43MHz with fan reliably, and I'm not certain but that the memory controller quit first. The implication is that the .8 micron shrink of the 486 should run at 50MHz fine (whether anyone can make it pass FCC is another question entirely). -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" Dell Computer Co 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759 512-338-8789
sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) (01/02/91)
In article <52097@bigtex.cactus.org> james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes: >I suggest that comp.sys.intel is a better newsgroup for this query. >But in any case: Or comp.arch... (note that I've directed followup's to c.s.intel) >There will almost certainly not be a 50MHz 386 from Intel. Intel >appears poised to try the 286 -> 386sx trick over again, this time >with 386 -> 486. Keep in mind that the 386 is an old design - it >should be much easier to make a 486 run at 50MHz than a 386. I'm not >so sure that the marketing trick will work this time, but then there >wasn't any good reason for it to work last time either. However: at least two companies are expected to come out with x86 (x >= 3) clones this year (AMD is apparantly sampling the part now, and all indications are that Cyrix will have something before the end of the year [I hope! 8-)]), maybe more. Since the second source people are the ones who brought out the 20Mhz '286... Also note, for the curious, Nexgen is doing a high performance *86 clone; originally, it was supposed to be a '386 clone, but they may have thrown in the extra few instructions to be '486 compatable. I think it's supposed to be two to three times faster than the '486, at the same clock rate... -- Sean Eric Fagan | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it; sef@kithrup.COM | I had a bellyache at the time." -----------------+ -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_) Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.