Processor names: Intel 80386SX? DX? SL?

[Rip the Jacker]

Alright. I'm a bit confused about what SX, DX, SL, and other acronyms stand for.

Could anyone please point these out? Do they actually stand for something?

 

[Kyanzes]

According to this page they stand for "Double-word eXternal" and "SX for Single-word eXternal". Never knew that and never really cared until you asked, even though I had a lot of CPUs (some of them integrated on the mobo) back then with such names. Of course it was common knowledge that SX had no FPU enabled whild DX had. Was an interesting period. I remember we had to replace quartz oscillator crystals to overclock the CPUs 🙂

I remember there were SLCs also 🙂

Addition: most of the results are defining the SLC/DLC line CPUs as reduced consumption solutions so it is possible (not sure though) that the LC tag means "low consumption" while the meaning of S and D remains the same as it was already described above. Which reminds me that I really saw laptops back then with such CPUs however I also met with desktop SLC/DLC CPUs. Most of these laptops were thicker than my Pundit.

 

[Pabster]

Yep, the good old days. I still miss my VESA graphics 😛

 

[V00D00]

thanks for the info.. interesting

 

[DaveSimmons]

386: SX = 16-bit data path DX = 32-bit data path, neither one had a math coprocessor

486: SX = math coprocessor disabled, but full 32-bit data path, DX = math coprocessor enabled.

 

[Rip the Jacker]

ty.

 

[Googer]

They said it all and it is correct. If you want a good vintange processor then look for a DX or DX4

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, You got some pretty good answers here, but I am much older than most. Here is a little more info on the old ones. DX2 was a clock doubling chip. It ran at twice the actual clock speed or 50 Mhz on a 25 Mhz clock. A DX4 was a tripler and ran at 75 Mhz on a 25 Mhz clock. They were good for updating a MB. Jim

 

[bendixG15]

even back then AMD was beating INTEL

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: bendixG15
even back then AMD was beating INTEL

Yep, my 386 - 40 MHz AMD was much nicer than intel's slower 33 MHz part.

AMD went through a bad period after the Pentium 1 got going though, since they only had fast 486 chips to compete. They kept being a couple of steps behind (e.g. K6 vs. Pentium II) until the first Athlons made them roughly on par with intel's P3.

 

[Neverbehind]

Heh, I remember there was a turbo button on my computer.

 

[Auric]

Were the SX's FPU functions disabled only to offer a lower price point or could they have been defective too (as with contemporary cache or pipelines, etc.)? I remember having a 486SX on-board with an OverDrive® socket which, despite the nomenclature, did not just accept a math-coprocessor but a discrete CPU (DX or whathaveyou) -thus bypassing the on-board one.