Butterfly processor

A Pentium® Butterfly would be really cool

Although there are other laptops currently on the market that utilize the P5 processor (although many use the desk-side high power consumption chip set), the Butterfly has an Intel 486 processor. There are two versions; one with the 50 MHz 486 DX2 (8K cache) and one with the 75 MHZ 486 DX4 (16K cache).

Processor upgrades

Several vendors including Portable Enhancements and Evergreen Technologies offer processor upgrades for the Butterfly. At this time, it looks like the Advanced Micro Devices Am5x86^(TM) @ 100 MHz is available for about $400. This is probably a fair price considering that the Butterfly's 486 processor is soldered in.

David Ross put together a nice report on Laptop CPU upgrades. He did some benchmarks before and after upgrading a desktop 486 (for only $40!!). He seems to believe that since the 486 in the Butterfly already has a good cache and FPU, it would not benefit as much from a Am5x86 upgrade.

If you want a Pentium, here's some information on the Butterfly successor.

Related Craig's Butterfly pages:

Back to Craig's IBM Butterfly page