Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!bridge2!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!boulder!wallwey
From: wallwey@boulder.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Replacing an 80386 with an 80486
Message-ID: <17611@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 1 Mar 90 18:36:31 GMT
References: <29108@amdcad.AMD.COM> <1640057@hpspcoi.HP.COM> <25E98AD7.9457@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <9589@portia.Stanford.EDU> <241.25ec328b@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
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Reply-To: wallwey@boulder.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM)
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In article <241.25ec328b@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> v126gfl3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
>............  The design of the 486 compared to the 386 is not unlike
>the 386 is to the 286, for which there are many options for upgrades, only the
>most radical of which is motherboard replacement.  I would have to beleive the
>boys at Intel are gonna be working overtime to get an Inboard/486 out on the
>market, once they get the bugs out of the 486, that is.
>
>Alex Cutrone
>v126gfl3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu

If the recent past is an indication about "drop in proccessor boards", I
would NOT consider getting or waiting for one.  In the last year, it has
really become as INEXPENSIVE to replace the MOTHER-BOARD as to use an 
"Inboard-type drop-in board".  By actually replacing the mother-board you also
forgo so many of the probablems associated with drop-in boards.
Also  mother-board replacements tend to yeild  faster machines.
To be Specific, when you use a "Drop in microproccessor
board, you are still limited to using your original memory, and bus, not
to memtion your system has more unneeded complexity.  If you actually
replace the mother-board, the whole system is actually deisgned for that
microproccessor.  To give an example, the i486 has some new special
burst cache fill features.  To use these features, the i486 has to have
the memory system designed specially for it.  Granted you can disable
these features, but why.  I do understand that if intel actually does
make an Inboard/486 product, they will probably put the memory on the 
board.  Even so, everything else will still be limited to the bus of
the original mother board.  Also trying to get all the memory on the
Inboard might be a little hard with larger (lots of MB) systems.

Finally, to change the mother board on most systems isn't that much harder
than another card.  Granted it will take maybe an hour and half, compared
with just the half for drop in board, but I think the benifits are worth it!!!

	Just Some of My opinions
		Dean