It represents a fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs since the original 8086 of 1978. A 50 MHz i486 executes around 40 million instructions per second on average and is able to reach 50 MIPS peak performance, approximately twice as fast as the i386 or 80286 per clock cycle, thanks to its five-stage pipeline with all stages bound to a single cycle.
The i486 was introduced in 1989 and was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating-point unit.
The on chip enhanced FPU unit was also significantly faster than the 80387 per cycle. ==Background== The i486 was announced at Spring Comdex in April 1989.
At the announcement, Intel stated that samples would be available in the third quarter of 1989 and production quantities would ship in the fourth quarter of 1989.
Even overseas in the United States it was popularized as "The World's First 486" in the September 1989 issue of Byte magazine (shown right). Later i486 boards also supported Plug-And-Play, a specification designed by Microsoft that began as a part of Windows 95 to make component installation easier for consumers. ==Gaming== The 486DX2 66 MHz processor was popular on home-oriented PCs during the early to mid 1990s, toward the end of the MS-DOS gaming era.
Oct 1995 Intel i486 DX images and descriptions at cpu-collection.de Die photo of Intel 386DX Computer-related introductions in 1989 486
Even overseas in the United States it was popularized as "The World's First 486" in the September 1989 issue of Byte magazine (shown right). Later i486 boards also supported Plug-And-Play, a specification designed by Microsoft that began as a part of Windows 95 to make component installation easier for consumers. ==Gaming== The 486DX2 66 MHz processor was popular on home-oriented PCs during the early to mid 1990s, toward the end of the MS-DOS gaming era.
While the Cyrix Cx5x86 faded quite quickly when the Cyrix 6x86 took over, the AMD Am5x86 was important during the time when the AMD K5 was delayed. Computers based on the i486 remained popular through the late 1990s, serving as low-end processors for entry-level PCs.
Dec 1992 * EMBEDDED ULTRA-LOW POWER Intel 486 SX * Embedded Write-Back Enhanced Intel DX4.
Intel and IBM have broad cross-licenses of these patents, and AMD was granted rights to the relevant patents in the 1995 settlement of a lawsuit between the companies. AMD produced several clones of the i486 using a 40 MHz bus (486DX-40, 486DX/2-80, and 486DX/4-120) which had no equivalent available from Intel, as well as a part specified for 90 MHz, using a 30 MHz external clock, that was sold only to OEMs.
The fastest running i486-compatible CPU, the Am5x86, ran at 133 MHz and was released by AMD in 1995.
Oct 1995 Intel i486 DX images and descriptions at cpu-collection.de Die photo of Intel 386DX Computer-related introductions in 1989 486
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