Dave Andrews
With a street price of approximately $400, Intel's first Pentium OverDrive chip, which was released earlier this year, offers a moderately appealing solution for upgrading your PC's processor from a 25-MHz 486 to a 63-MHz Pentium. The chip's design has compromises, however: It uses a 32-bit, 486-style I/O bus instead of a true Pentium 64-bit internal/external data pathway.
The newest OverDrive still has the 32-bit I/O bus, but its lower price and higher performance make it a better bargain. BYTE's cross-platform BYTEmark CPU/FPU benchmark tests (
see the figure
) on the new 5-V, 83-MHz Pentium OverDrive show that this upgrade chip will boost an Intel 66-MHz 486DX2 PC (or any other PC with a 33-MHz I/O bus and a #3 socket) up
to performance levels that are slightly less than that of a 90-MHz Pentium. Intel expects the 83-MHz Pentium OverDrive to sell for about $270. (Intel is also lowering the price of the 63-MHz chip to under $300.)
Installing the chip is easy if your PC has a ZIF slot, such as the one in the Gateway 2000 486DX2/66 that we tested. You simply raise the latch, pull out the 486 chip, and plop in the OverDrive chip. As with the previous OverDrive, the 83-MHz version comes with a fan attached to the top of the chip (
see the photo
), as well as a program that monitors the fan. If the fan slows down or stops, the program generates an error message and the CPU throttles back its clock speed.
The 83-MHz Pentium OverDrive chip is an inexpensive and effective upgrade if you want to squeeze more power out of your PC instead of taking the plunge of purchasing a new system.
WHERE TO FIND
Intel Corp.
Santa Clara, CA
(800) 538-3373 or call your local Intel dealer
http://www.intel.com/procs/ovrdrive
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Intel Delivers a Better Pentium OverDrive
