(sorry, no references)
>To followup to my own post...  As I posted in another message...
>
>On the other hand, in spite of the speed improvements, my simple
>Pentium 120 blows the doors off my 5x86-133.  So, keep things in
>perspective.  The 5x86 is a good cheap upgrade for an existing old 486
>motherboard.

This is a difficult call.  I picked up the CPU and MB, with a 16M stick for
less than $350 (don't remember exactly), which I considered a deal at the
time.  

If you'd like a faster CPU, but would rather split some of the budget out
for a nice PCI 2M video card, or a nicer mouse, or a quadspin CD, these
aren't a bad choice.  (And AMD's 5k86 line screams)

>If you're going to buy new, definitely avoid the 5x86 (486) parts and
>head straight for Pentium (or P6).  If you're on a really tight
>budget, try to find a closeout-special on a Triton-1 board and a P100.
>Even that will be way faster than a 5x86-133.

Out in the sticks, (Iowa) the 5x86 has been a nice upgrade for several of my
machines with money invested in nice VLB video.  

In the first case, I was given $1200 to spread across six machines, and get
the max yield.  Result: almost doubled everyone's memory, and the /33s went
to /160s, rather than buy -one- low end P5/75.  

And my experience has been that for heavy math, (Usually FFTs) the 160s run
roughly as fast as the P5-90s.  You could do worse.

>(My P120 is an Asus P55TP4N [Triton-1] board.)

Must be nice.  :)
--
Sean Berry is a computer scientist trapped in an engineer's mind.
I imagine someone is likely to misinterpret my opinions as those of my
various employers.  This is not the case.