We need a Cyrix forum

PurduEE said:
Actually, the 5x86/6x86 pre-dated the use of FPU instructions for gaming, so I disagree with regard to the "for it's time" piece. Until Quake made its appearance (summer 96), Cyrix and AMD processors rocked on all the current (93-96) games that just used integer type instructions (duke nukem, Doom, Heretic, etc.). Both Cyrix and AMD made the conscious decision that FPUs were for scientists and mathematicians and it was thus unnecessary to spend the time to rev the 486 FPU much for use in their newer, pentium-class processors. Cyrix had the capability to make good FPUs. In fact, their first products were math co-processors for 286 and 386 processors. They just misjudged the market or at least the imagination/ingenuity of John Carmack. AMD was able to recover, Cyrix could not.
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It also didn't help that they used different bus speeds to justify the whole PR rating in a time when few mobo makers had the ability to clock lock the PCI bus. In an age where the PCI bus was still relatively new and cards were touchy on good days, this caused a lot of problems.

There is of coures the whole space heater aspect too. Aluminum vs copper/gold interconnects.
 
Yeah, those days are over. I remember when Cyrix was the last holdout with a 5V core CPU (others had moved to 3v or 3.3v by then), a 486DX2-66. The CPUs ran really hot. How much power? IIRC, it used something like 12W. :p
 
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