All a bit strange really – Intel Corp says it is seeing a major shift in demand in the European personal computer market this autumn towards high power models that use its most powerful microprocessors, the clock-doubled full 80486s and that the market is moving straight from the 80486SX to the fastest chip and skipping the slower full 80486s; the extra speed in the clock-doubled parts is useful for processor-intensive work, which may speed sluggish Windows a bit, but only spreadsheet users need the on-board maths co-processor, and while there are many heavy spreadsheet users, a large proportion of users never run one; the performance of Windows remains a problem, and Intel could do a vast army of users a favour by doing an 80486 in which a graphics co-processor replaces the on-chip maths co-processor – sounds like something that Cyrix Corp or Advanced Micro Devices Inc should consider seriously.
