50MHz 386/486 Chips

[Sean Eric Fagan]

In article <52097 at bigtex.cactus.org> james at 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 at 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.