The Intel 486DX2, introduced March 3, 1992, was the first clock-multiplied x86 CPU. It was a clock-doubled version of the earlier 486 CPU. A DX2 ran at speeds of 50 or 66 MHz, using a 25 or 33 MHz front side bus. It was pin-compatible with the earlier 486 CPUs, using the same 168-pin socket, but the use of a clock multiplier let it run at double the clock rate, yielding a 50-70 percent speed improvement over running the CPU at the bus speed. Much of the speed gain came from taking advantage of the 486’s on-die 8KB L1 cache.
The 50-MHz Intel486 DX2 cost $550 each in 1,000-pieces quantities at the time of introduction.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
