Upgrading my Compaq with an Intel 486 DX4 100 Overdrive Chip

Upgrading from a 486 DX2 66 with an Intel 486 DX4 100 ODPR chip and testing perceived performance improvements with a range of DOS games

The Overdrive Processor Replacement process with this computer was extremely quick.

This Compaq Presario 425 from 1993 gets a little boost of performance from this upgrade, though I would say the ISA video card, 8 megabytes of RAM and the old slow hard drive likely slow it down. A 486 with VLB would undoubtedly perform better.

At some point I will get some benchmarks onto a CD and run some more quantitative tests rather than just trying to 'feel' the performance improvement :)

Timestamps:
Intro 00:00
Installation 00:53
Boot to windows 95 02:27
Doom 2 Install 04:50
Doom 2 Gameplay 06:01
FX Fighter Install 09:19
FX Fighter Gameplay 11:39
Wings of Glory Install 15:29
Wings of Glory Gameplay 19:47
Final Thoughts 21:53

[RetroAmateur]

mmmm I love processors. Always the easiest part to swap, even back when everything was a pain.

[UncleAwesomeRetro]

Nice to see the Presario 425 again :) I am surprised doom was not smoother though.

[ronsmith]

Great to see you back. I think I got an overdrive Processor for my DX2-66 but I can't remember if it was a Pentium grade upgrade. Not sure if that was a thing but it did improve the performance.

[FOIL_FRESH]

such a cool little all-in-one. and you weren't lying about how easy it is to upgrade! is the chipset and video VLB? great vid :)

[Shishkebarbarian]

haha, i have an all original Compaq Presario 4/33 that can only be upgraded with this Overdrive chip. I have one lying in wait for when I eventually have enough time to work on it.

[jaeger]

Do you have an ISA video card? In my benchmarks the DX4/100 is about 40% faster than a DX2/66 in games. It's a speed difference you should definitely notice. If the difference is much more subtle, you are probably bottlenecked by your video card. VLB and PCI cards are much faster than ISA.

Having said that, no 486 is fast enough for SVGA (640x480) you need a fast Pentium for that :) Even the 160mhz 486's are a slide show at that res.

[Channel-iude]

I have a socket 3 (i think) dx 2 66 cpu, with a leaver/handle and i cannot seem to get the cpu out, would it just be something i can force up or should it be zero force for this type of socket as you mentioned in the video?