The Performa/LC 630 Dos Compatible is probably my favorite 68K machine right now. It's pretty easy to upgrade to 128MB of RAM, uses inexpensive IDE hard drives and if your lucky can come with a DOS card. The DOS card in my Performa 630 came with a Cyrix CX486DX2-66 which is pretty good for old DOS gaming. Here's the DOS card and all it's glory:
It's a bit of a strange beast since it uses both the orginal 68LC040 socket and the PDS slot. The 486 CPU is socketed though so the obvious question to ask is can we upgrade it with something better? The answer is yes!
The original CPU is 5V with a 33 Mhz bus speed so any upgrade will require a 5V to ~3.3V adapter. Any 33 Mhz bus CPU like the Intel DX4-100 or AMD 5x86 133 Mhz should work. I happened to have a Gainberry Cyrix 5x86-100GP chip which fits the bill:
Here's a bechmark of the old DX-2 66Mhz and the new 5x86 100 Mhz:
It's right on the money. I also tried an AMD-X5-133. Here's a benchmark of the AMD:
Unfortunately with the AMD 133 Mhz CPU Windows 95 crashes on boot. Tried all the jumper setting on the processor but no luck. Maybe a Cyrix 5x86 133Mhz CPU wouldn't have this issue but I don't have one to test with, but I will update this post if I ever find one.
It's a bit of a strange beast since it uses both the orginal 68LC040 socket and the PDS slot. The 486 CPU is socketed though so the obvious question to ask is can we upgrade it with something better? The answer is yes!
The original CPU is 5V with a 33 Mhz bus speed so any upgrade will require a 5V to ~3.3V adapter. Any 33 Mhz bus CPU like the Intel DX4-100 or AMD 5x86 133 Mhz should work. I happened to have a Gainberry Cyrix 5x86-100GP chip which fits the bill:Here's a bechmark of the old DX-2 66Mhz and the new 5x86 100 Mhz:
It's right on the money. I also tried an AMD-X5-133. Here's a benchmark of the AMD:
Unfortunately with the AMD 133 Mhz CPU Windows 95 crashes on boot. Tried all the jumper setting on the processor but no luck. Maybe a Cyrix 5x86 133Mhz CPU wouldn't have this issue but I don't have one to test with, but I will update this post if I ever find one.
