What is this?
Posted by Keith_Lotter@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 92 comments
I found this in my grandfathers garage.
Posted by Keith_Lotter@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 92 comments
I found this in my grandfathers garage.
Electrical_Ad_5760@reddit
My childhood, not much use for it though! It’s nostalgic for me as my first PC (IBM Aptiva) had a Cyrix chip. I see a WinBond chip, hook it up to the phone line and hack a Gibson.
Ok-Net-7353@reddit
Old ceramic processing computer there's more gold in those then I think outta any CPU.
pjakma@reddit
It's a mid to late 90s Super-Socket-7 motherboard, with 3 PCI slots (the original 33MHz, 32 data-bit-wide, parallel PCI, not the modern packetised PCI-express / PCIe), 2 ISA slots, and 4 SIMM slots for (probably) EDO-DRAM SIMM memory cards.
IamSuperChux@reddit
Oh man, you got a Cyrix?! Good processor. Fast for their time, tended to burn up. We had one for years that didn't burn out - but that's the reputation. It'll be slow as hell by todays standards, but kind of a neat little curio from mid-90s computing.
Shoddy-Night201@reddit
That board probably came from a packard bell... Its a BCM IN5598... It probably works but the SiS graphics embedded is not great... Good for dos and early win95
evasive2010@reddit
Correct https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/bcm-in5598
techika@reddit
Old Cyrix socket 7 cpu, but work with super socket 7 board.
Ok-Hotel-8551@reddit
Computer
Useful_Government603@reddit
Holy smokes! Haven't seen that board in a long time! Nostalgia big time! Used to run win 3.11 on one like it.
WyattKraai@reddit
Mobo, bro
Specialist-Pea-9952@reddit
I remember Cyrix!
16bitTweaker@reddit
It's the mainboard, memory and cpu of a late 90's computer. What exactly do you want to know?
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
Early - mid 90s likely
16bitTweaker@reddit
The Cyrix M II-300GP came out in 1998. The Speed you see on the CPU is the FSB speed (75Mhz). The 75Mhz FSB version of the Cyrix M II-300GP runs at 225 Mhz.
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
Yea I saw that after looking up the cpu in another reply. Definitely late 90s
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
This Cyrix systems were decent, and cheap. That's really about all that can be said good about them. Not "bad" systems as many say, they are simply budget systems.
In general, a souped up 486 with some Pentium and MMX features, and quite a bit cheaper than current Intel chips, which at that time frame was the Pentium II. I built quite a few of them in the era, they were popular for either computers for the kids or for POS terminals and workstations.
In an era when most PII systems went in the $1,000+ range, those could be put together and sold for around $600. And most that I built as replacements were for customers that were replacing absolutely ancient XT and 286 systems, so they thought they were awesome.
Kinda like comparing a Chevy Vega with a Cadillac.
RadishAggravating491@reddit
If I recall correctly Cyrix started with drop in upgrade/replacements for the Math Coprocessors and 386 chips? I have few of their overdrive-like CPUs from 486 upgrades in the day. I know IBM also released its own branded Cyrix chips as well.
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
Cyrix did not have their own fabrication plants, instead they designed the chips and relied upon others to actually make them (Texas Instruments early on).
And for quite a while, the company actually making the chips was IBM, which is why they entered the partnership to rebrand some Cyrix chips as IBM chips. Which caused a lot in the industry to laugh at Intel and got IBM rather pissed when they tried to imply they were "garbage chips".
Not the only time Intel would get egg on their face for trash talking their competition. Like when they tried to imply the same thing about AMD and their 387 chips. Not bothering to tell people that most Intel co-processors were rebranded AMD processors. And the first time they made their own co-processor in-house, it was the Pentium with an infamous bug.
GreggAlan@reddit
So the 486SX drop in replacement for 286 CPUs was a Cyrix design? A friend got a couple of those. One he put in an old laptop with an orange mono plasma display, the other went into a PS/2 Model 60 that he max upgraded in every way possible, and it was still really slow.
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
What in the hell are you talking about? I have never heard of any such thing.
GreggAlan@reddit
https://www.cpushack.com/2014/08/30/improve-technologies-make-it-486-286-upgrade/
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
A really niche item, not even sure who that would appeal to.
I was in IT at that time, and I never heard of it. And to be honest, other than buying one for curiosity I would have likely never sold it or suggested it to others. Mostly because I can already see huge freaking problems with this. The bottlenecks and speed hits would have been absolutely insane. But it would be fun for a chuckle with my other hacker friends at the time, seeing a 286 running 486 code. Not unlike when I ran Windows on an XT. Not really useful, but interesting.
That is why for that brief period when the 486 came out we also had VLB, and a new way of handling large amounts of RAM on the board without add-on cards (pushing 2-4+ megs of data to and from extended-expanded memory cards was introducing some serious bottlenecks through the ISA bus). As well as EISA and MCA trying to replace ISA. Trying to find any way to get around the bottlenecks of ISA and the bus speeds that often had the CPU sitting around waiting for the bottlenecks in other areas to catch up to the CPU.
I mean, I can see how something like that would work, but the difference in how that worked and an NEC V20-30 is vastly different. Bus speeds, bitrate transfers, and so many other things start to come into play now. In fact, when I sold those 1 MB XT boards, I had a little fun with the extra 360k of ram in the startup files by making it into a RAM disk (no other real use for so little expanded memory) and shoving in COMMAND.COM and pointing to it there. And going to the RAM disk did improve speeds just a tad over having to access it from disk.
Of course, I am also somebody who once upgraded an XT to a 386. Literally inserted a 286 upgrade board into an XT, then a 386 upgrade board into the 286. It was a real frankenstein, but could operate the XT with DesqView in multitasking protected mode. But it was still slow as dogsnot in winter, and was mostly done because I was bored, had the parts in the back and I wanted to see if it would even work.
Another way to say it would be to take GeForce RTX 5090, and adapt it to work in an AGP bus. I mean, you likely could and I see no reason why someone could not do that. But why? The bottleneck in speed would be so horrible, you might as well just run a damned 7950 because that is about the capability of that bus.
GreggAlan@reddit
The primary reason those 68 pin 486 chips existed was for the "sub zero" PC, the "magic price point" of selling a PC at or under $1000 in the late 90's. Being able to plug some of them directly into 386 and 386 boards was an extra.
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
Oh, myself and many others were more than able to pull off selling new PCs at under $1,000. There were tons of small mom and pop operations that were selling new systems in the $600-800 range.
In fact, I often shake my head because so often in this very forum I see people struggling with trying to resolve to me basic problems, and the only thing they can do is post in here because there are very few local computer shops anymore. I even have this issue myself, as I might need something basic like a 40 or 80 pin IDE cable, and my only solution locally is to go to "Big Box Buy" because there is not one local computer shop anymore. The last one closed up about 3 years ago.
GreggAlan@reddit
I do some computer work out of my house and also on site. It's mostly software stuff with Windows with the occasional Macintosh. There is one guy in town with a computer and electronics storefront but he's high priced and has a wall behind his customer counter to hide everything. I've never liked shops that hide how the sausage is made. I don't do it and never worked at a place that did.
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
My one standard when it comes to computer stores is that everything must be in the open and priced (other than RAM). I have simply up and walked out of stores because they had nothing priced.
When I moved from LA to Alabama in 2003, I knew I was not going to find any work in the corporate side. So instead I decided to get a job again at a local store. And ironically I also needed a modem as DSL and Cable was not in that area yet and I had not needed a modem in years.
I hit all six local computer shops in the area, and found one that was just what I wanted. Clean, orderly, and everything was priced (and reasonably priced). I even saw the owner doing a power supply replacement on his desk as the customer stood and watched.
And it just so happened he needed a new tech, so I handed him my resume. And I worked there for 5 years until I joined the Army. He also is one of those that operated on volume more than price. His markup on all used computers was around $100, be it a Pentium II 233 or a Pentium 4 1.4 GHz. So it did not matter which you bought, he made about the same amount on each one.
The same with the systems I custom built. Around $200 markup, which also covered the 1 year warranty he offered (we might get 2-3 a year that failed). He made his money on volume of sales much more than the price of each individual item. Which is why I saw stores in the area come and go, yet they were open until the owner retired a few years ago.
GreggAlan@reddit
Finally found the model that could plug directly into a 68 pin plcc 80286 socket. TI 486SXLC/486SLC2
IIRC the chip was also sold under IBM and Cyrix names. It did need L1 cache enabling software. Of course they were slow, hobbled by old DIP or 30 pin SIMM RAM and 16bit bus, but for people who wanted to run software that needed 386 or 486 CPU but didn't have $2K for a new 486DX box they did the job.
Back then I figured the main reason those CPUs were made was to use old technology made for 286 and 386 PCs. Likely only minor changes would be needed to add VLB or PCI support. Some people have directly swapped some of those 486 chips for soldered on 386SX CPUs.
The upgrades with QFP CPUs on interposers with extra components were made to make it easier to use by automatically enabling L1 cache, adapting voltage, setting multipliers.
Directly swapping a 68pin plcc 486 into a 286 had a lower chance of success but in cases like that old laptop my friend had it was the only way to do it due to lack of space.
The_Jizzard_Of_Oz@reddit
I remember a rumour that the Cyrix by IBM ran better than the equivalent Cyrix by TI - and that the few fully IBM branded CPU's that got made somehow worked even better, and were the ones to look out for despite being essentially unobtanium or overpriced/overhyped when they did get to the open market. I've only seen one IBM 6x86 in the wild a long long time ago...
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
Well, TI were not making them at the same time so that really does not apply. From 1988-1994 it was TI (as well as Thompson) so it would be their 386-486 clones.
By the time they started the 5X86 it was IBM, and that really is a different generation. And the IBM ones were no different, I've seen them a few times. Even did a benchmark comparison I want to say in 2003, and it performed just like the Cyrix branded chip.
I saw them all the time in LA computer shows back in that era. And even seen them in computer stores of the time like CompUSA and Fry's.
The_Jizzard_Of_Oz@reddit
Rumour laid to rest! At least now don't regret not finding the IBM branded one I specifically wanted back in the day!!
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
The 1990s was a kind of crazy time to be in the industry, just a tad calmer than the 1980s were.
Standards were finally calming down, from almost a dozen operating systems to just 2, Windows and O/S2. And those two finally pushed out all of those still using older machines to getting new ones.
Hell, some do not believe me that I was still selling brand new XT class systems in 1992. And some of the late model ones were really amazing. With an NEC V33 16 MHz CPU and a full megabyte of RAM on the board, they actually ran just as fast as a 286 at the time. And I could sell it brand new out the door for $250 (with a used monochrome monitor). $300 if you wanted a used CGA with GeoWorks operating system.
Until Win95, a lot of people simply saw no need to get anything faster. I was still dealing with XT systems that customers had well into the 2000s.
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
I believe so, similar with AMD
funkympc@reddit
They served their purpose. The purpose was mostly to get people that bought into PC in the early 90s a way to run windows 95/98 cheaply. Mainly by making cpu/mobo/ram combos cheap enough to make it an impulse buy for alot of people. It was alot easier to swallow a $300 labor included(thats what we sold it for at the shop I worked at) upgrade rather than a whole new pc for $1k.
AppropriateCap8891@reddit
Yep, did a lot of them back then just like that.
They were still AT, so they could drop off an XT-286+ system to me on Tuesday, and for $300 or so come and pick it up on Wednesday. At one point I had a drawer full of 256k ram sticks that I had pulled out of systems I did those upgrades on.
We generally offered upgrades in three flavors. Cyrix were the low end, worked but nothing special. AMD was above that, in that era a good compromise of price and performance. Intel was top of the line, if you could afford it.
I now can even laugh because the old working boards and CPUs I just threw in a box we had in the front. I think we sold them working for $15 each for an XT-386 motherboard-socketed RAM-CPU (486 was $25 without RAM). I bet some would have a stroke today thinking about what I commonly threw in $5-25 boxes in the day.
And retail and industrial users loved them, as most of them were still using DOS software anyways. If you ran a video rental store and your software was all DOS, what did you need a PII for? Slap in a Cyrix with 1 MB of RAM and they were good to go.
funkympc@reddit
Yes the amd k5/6 was the one at my shop. We sold those 2:1 intel and cyrix in that era. Same deal tho, bring in your old pc Monday have a new one on Wednesday that can run win98 reasonably well, especially for web browsing and email, which for the average user was the biggest upgrade they'd see coming from a 4mb 386 system.
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
Yea seems like a budget "upgrade to support new apps" option.
It'll do decent DOS gaming though. The SiS chipset is good with compatibility from what I've seen on some retro focused YouTube channels. apparently doesn't have scrolling bugs like other brands/cards so games like command keen, jazz jackrabbit, epic Pinball, etc should scroll smoothly. 4MB can be allocated to it. Not particularly fast but compatible and will run "properly" if a bit lower resolution for performance. 98 should run decent, maybe even 2000 or XP for office work
Cspeed76@reddit
Eran módulos dimm
burritoresearch@reddit
Presence of PCI slots means it's definitely not early 90s. You wouldn't find PCI on anything before about 1995.
Souta95@reddit
Years ago I came across one of these mainboards.
It was an OEM board out of a Packard Bell. Don't know the model, only ever had the main board and CPU.
It was slow as hell, but worked.
Glass_of_Sweet_Milk@reddit
Save the RAM!!! There's a car payment there! 😂😆🤣😭
SpartanMonkey@reddit
Those Cyrix processors were cheap. They claimed Pentium performance on 486 mothrboards. I believe later they branded them as 5x86 processors. I had one that ran at 120mhz.
chandleya@reddit
This is an MII, it's the generation after 6X86. It was cheap and performed poorly though - mostly due to its absolutely crap FPU design. An MII-433 had worse FPU performance than a Celeron 333. Not that the Celeron was bad, the MII was just plain worse. And then it was on a Socket 7 board with all of those potential limitations.
SpartanMonkey@reddit
I stand corrected. Did they make a 5x86 or am I misremembering?
DarkResident305@reddit
They absolutely did. It was a different chip though. This is a Socket 7 chip.
GreggAlan@reddit
The Cyrix was also HOT, especially when relying only on the green anodized OEM heat sink. I got an instant blister on a fingertip just barely brushing against one.
The AMD chip was barely warm, especially the ADW version, and despite the 3.3V specification it ran just fine on straight 5V, and at 160Mhz 4x40Mhz. If you had a VLB board with a decent video card and fast enough L2 chips it could run at 200Mhz.
Royale_AJS@reddit
They actually performed just fine for the money in day to day tasks, it was Quake that killed these and almost killed off AMD’s solution too. Quake made heavy use of the FPU in the Pentiums and ran like a 2 legged dog on these. If you wanted to play Quake in those days, you needed the Pentium.
SpartanMonkey@reddit
I remember getting the latest P2-266 at work and loading it up with Quake to play in the back room before we deployed them.
Boss: Where are those new workstations?
Me: They're uh, still being vetted?
Opposite_Article_470@reddit
Agree with the perfomance of Quake although one of my (tiny) retro rigs runs a 200Mhz Cyrix MediaGX aka Geode and that runs Quake fairly decently - at the lower resolutions but another tiny machine that has a Pentium 266MMX runs it smoothly at higher resolutions highlighting the FPU performance difference although the Cyrix seems to run other stuff (integer based) faster than the Pentium
platetone@reddit
yeah, that chup was basically the end. I worked there in IT and desktop support at the time. all my early computers were "acquired" 6x86s and related leftover parts. such a great place to work as a college kid.
chandleya@reddit
i bet. that's a great story, even if brief lol
Hicks_206@reddit
Bought mine at Fry’s in Portland shortly after UO:T2A came out.
Splurged for 32 mb ram and my parents got the new cable internet in town. My GOD those were fun times.
AnonymooseRedditor@reddit
Yeah they were junk! I had a Cyrix 75Mhz it was trash
Deletereous@reddit
Wow, a Cyrix cpu. They were the budget alternative to AMD K6 which were the alternative to Pentium MMX.
Marco-YES@reddit
ATX Socket 7 is a gem
iPhone-5-2021@reddit
A motherboard from a mid/late 90s computer
5050logic@reddit
Memory unlocked! I built a Cyrix-based machine back in the day! If I recall, they were a budget alternative to Intel and AMD. I only ever had the one system because support wasn’t great and development kind of dried up.
roostie02@reddit
generic wintel machine, just like nearly every other "what is this?" post in this sub
lotusstp@reddit
Cyrix ain’t no intel inside…
mrmcporkchop@reddit
Man I haven't thought about Cyrix since I had first desktop. Parents bought me a small form factor Compaq that had a 180 mhz Cyrix Media GX and I think only 16 mb of ram. Was a fairly reliable computer that I had for a stupid amount of time. Upgraded the ram, upgraded to bigger hdd, upgraded to a CD-RW drive. Ran Windows 95/98, and then at some point Linux for a while, which I think was maybe like Red Hat 5? Been a long time, hard to remember details.
National-Painter-747@reddit
Put a fan and heatsink on that thing unless you want a small fire.
Tac_Collector@reddit
its from a computer
Opposite_Article_470@reddit
That is a motherboard suitable for building up a nice retro rig! (Win95/98 & DOS) it already looks like it has a decent amount of RAM, SiS 5598 so has built in VGA plus what looks to be an ESS1868 or 1869 Audiodrive onboard in the background which has excellent compatibility. Just need a heatsink, case etc and sweet as
vexatious-big@reddit
History, my boy, history
DegradedOldMan@reddit
Poor person shit
RadishAggravating491@reddit
I have not seen a Cyrix chip in long time! I used to swear by them. I still have a few 6x86 chips in my CPU stash. That was my go to budget build back in the day.
blinkheart@reddit
It's a cooktop
Inaksa@reddit
Cirix was a cpu maker company that ceased to exist mainly due to just been outgunned by Intel. I remember that a not insignificant reason was Quake 1 (yes the original) either not running or doing so in a very limited way. This opened the door to Intel becoming the sole giant chip maker with reach in homes. By the pentium era even with floating point error it was late for cirix they released a 586 but it was late.
That motherboard includes ISA slots (black ones) and PCI express white ones the difference between both besides the connector is how the cpu communicates with them (PCIe eventually became AGP wich eventually was used only for GPUs)
The 4 boards are memory DIMMS (based on the number of chips and era I assume 8mb)
stromm@reddit
Those are plain old PCI, not Express.
And no, PCIe did not become AGP.
If anything, you have that backwards. But not really even that.
PCIe is the current expansion slot in use.
Inaksa@reddit
Cirix was a cpu maker company that ceased to exist mainly due to just been outgunned by Intel. I remember that a not insignificant reason was Quake 1 (yes the original) either not running or doing so in a very limited way. This opened the door to Intel becoming the sole giant chip maker with reach in homes. By the pentium era even with floating point error it was late for cirix they released a 586 but it was late.
That motherboard includes ISA slots (black ones) and PCI express white ones the difference between both besides the connector is how the cpu communicates with them (PCIe eventually became AGP wich eventually was used only for GPUs)
The 4 boards are memory DIMMS (based on the number of chips and era I assume 4 or 8mb)
NightmareJoker2@reddit
Some system integrator’s Socket 7 motherboard with SiS 5598 chipset, EDO RAM and a Cyrix M II 300 processor clocked at 75MHz. This thing is worse than a Pentium 60, but better than a 486 66MHz.
Curiously, all the connectors for USB and other I/O, as well as the onboard VGA are missing. Is this an LPX board that has them all on one side?
chandleya@reddit
The picture is cropped.
Absolutely wild to use an MII with seemingly integrated graphics and SIMM EDO RAM. Makes me wonder if the board actually supports the MII.
2748seiceps@reddit
It kinda makes sense. the MII line had a weak FPU so it fails to perform well at gaming anyways.
This would have been a low-cost office or home machine aimed and people not playing 3D games.
eitohka@reddit
It failed to perform well for Quake, which was specifically optimized to simultaneously use the floating point unit and numerical processing unit, which worked wonders on the Pentium, but didn't work well on the Cyrix CPUs. The MII performed well in most other games of that era.
HansVanDerSchlitten@reddit
While the "300" as performance metric for the M-II at 225 certainly is a stretch, it was still a decent performing option - certainly much much faster than a Pentium 60. Perhaps you're confusing that chip with a Cyrix 5x86?
For late DOS and early Windows gaming, the M-II is actually quite usable. Here's a video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SilQX9qY3Ww
Js987@reddit
It’s later than that, this is closer to the MMX P55Cs. Fun part is this is the weird 225mhz one (75mhz bus, x3), which is a frequency you didnt see much in PCs.
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
No, read the lid again. It's 75 bus x3. About 166mhz
Dannynerd41@reddit
a pentium motherboard
BoysenberryFinal9113@reddit
I remember the Cyrix processor was really affordable and wanted to build a system with it, but never did.
A coworker and I were just talking about that processor a couple of weeks ago.
Hicks_206@reddit
… wtf is with everyone typing out 586 weird
grs86@reddit
Damn, it looks exactly like the motherboard out of a Packard Bell Club 40B.
Hicks_206@reddit
Looks like the gaming rig I built for Ultima Online’s first expansion.
Khrispy-minus1@reddit
If memory serves (I could be misremembering - it's been a long time since the 90's), what further crippled the performance of some of these implementations is that they downclocked the PCI bus to 25MHz (CLK/3) by default rather than running it at 37.5MHz (CLK/2) for compatibility.
Cool find though, it's a neat snapshot of budget systems in the late 90's.
KoneCat@reddit
It's a 90s Cyrix motherboard with what I believe is a Cyrix MII 300GP CPU, with three PCI and two ISA card slots. As for anything else, I'm not that knowledgeable on these boards, but that is an SIS chip and an Award BIOS chip. As far as I, and my brother can tell, that looks to be a Socket 7 so that's an older board than anything I've dealt with.
Damn cool, though! :D
chiclet_fanboi@reddit
Really cool, build a retro system with it, Windows 95/98 and there you go!
Jealous_Club_298@reddit
Old x86-based motherboard with ISA & PCI slots.
Accomplished-Camp193@reddit
The late 90's board for a shitbox with an SiS 5598 chipset, it has a Cryix MII CPU. Not to crap on Cryix, in fact, this kind of integration was very much welcome at this price point this was selling for. It wasn't good. But it was cheap.
Keith_Lotter@reddit (OP)
All I knew is my uncle had a computer business in the 90s..
DarkResident305@reddit
That makes sense.. These Cyrix chips weren't too mainstream, you mostly found them with independent system builders and enthusiast shops.
fiasn@reddit
Was this the SiS chipset with the first ever integrated graphics core? God that thing was terrible...
Keith_Lotter@reddit (OP)
Well thanks for letting me know what it is...
Js987@reddit
It’s a late 90s generic PC’s motherboard using a Cyrix MII 300p. This one is the 75mhz x 3 bus version, so the somewhat weird 225 mhz version. It’s intended to complete with the MMX era Pentium.
ParsnipLate2632@reddit
I have a motherboard with the same chipset and CPU. It’s a very old and slow machine only good for windows 98.