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I have a couple of these LGA68 286 CPU's at 8MHz and all of them a little bit different. For example this CPU is labeled SX123 just like this R80286 however the identification code is printed on a different row despite that both CPU's have been assembled in Malay. Usually assemblies from the same country have identical ways of printing/etching and assembling but apparently back in the day it varied somewhat. > Read more

An early and low clocked 286: 1984 and 4MHz . As far as I know the 4MHz model wasn't used in desktop PC's but did find it's way in a Matrox SX-900 graphics card (see third photo).

This CPU is also housed in the LGA-packaging. A bit more fragile than PGA (with pins on the CPU), yet it looks nice. In the x86 market the LGA-socket disappeared until 2003 when Intel started using it again for the Pentium 4.

An interesting article has been written on CPUShack:

The Matrox SX-900 was a standard MULTIBUS card with support for 640x480x8bit graphics. It supported a fill rate of 20 MPixels/sec which was very impressive in 1984. By comparison, the Nvidia NV1 (STG-2000) released in 1995, was only capable of a 12MPixel/sec fill rate, albeit at a richer color depth.

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With a production code of mid-1985, this is the oldest 286 in my collection. Back in '85 this 6MHz 286 was an expensive part, despite that the 286 was available for 3 years already.

The 286 had various performance improvements which made it a lot faster than the original 8088/8086. The mathematical DOSBench shows an incredible 32 points compared to the 18 points of an 8MHz 8086 which is almost twice the score despite the 2MHz lower clock-frequency. > Read more

A pretty common AMD 286 running at 12MHz. The 286 was available in various clock frequencies and had a great performance improvement over the 8086/8088. Especially the 12MHz or faster models offered pretty good 16-bit performance. > Read more

Not much to say about this 286 CPU. It was made in 1988 and runs at 10MHz. > Read more

At 12MHz 286 made in late 1988. The 12MHz model is Intels' fastest 286. Other companies manufactured 286 processors clocking at 16, 20 or 25MHz. > Read more

The NEC V40 is a 16-bit embedded CPU which is compatible with the V20 (which is compatible with the 8088). It has a 8-bit external bus but a different packaging. Because of the different packaging I cannot test this CPU in my regular 8088-motherboards. > Read more

Clocked at a fair 10MHz and fitted with pins like many future CPU's would have. In the day of the 286 one could find LCC (ceramic without pins), plastic packages and ceramic PGA (with pins) CPU's. This variety disappeared in the years to come. > Read more

As far as I know this is the second fastest R80286 LCC chip Intel made. Intel also made an 12MHz model. In case you find a 16MHz LCC 286 then it's probably made by AMD. > Read more

Much like the 10MHz model but 2MHz slower and 2 years younger. Back in 1986 this was a steady performer. Although clocked identical to many 8086/8088 computers the 286 was much faster. In Europe many people bought 8088-based computers even in 1988! Consider that the 286 was released in 1982 and the, even faster, 386 in 1985! Back in the day computers were very expensive; a hard drive or 1MB of RAM was more expensive as a whole (cheap) notebook today! > Read more

As seen on the picture this CPU shows lot's of similarities with the Harris CS80C286 chips (check for a list here). This is because Intersil bought the CPU division (and lot's of other divisions as well) from Harris.

This means that in a way this Intersil is identical to the Harris which uses the Intel 80286 core . > Read more

Pretty much the same as the 20MHz variant. The 25MHz model is the fastest 286 available and is pretty rare. Unfortunately I don't have the correct motherboard so I can't run it. > Read more

Identical to this 286 but 4MHz faster and a packaging that allows it to be soldered onto a motherboard.

Unfortunatly I haven't been able to test this CPU because the motherboard doesn't work. It might be related to a leaking battery, something lot's of old PC's suffer from. > Read more

Practically the same as the the Intel 286 at 12MHz but with AMD logo. Back in the old days AMD made Intel processors because IBM wanted more than one manufacturer for a part they used in their desktop PC's. > Read more

Just like the other 286'ers but in plastic form, made by Intel and running at 12MHz. > Read more

Just like the 6MHz 286 this one has never been used as well. For the rest it's just the same chip (and same as the 20MHz part) but at a different clock frequency. > Read more

A brand new (well, never used) 6MHz chip! The 286 at 6MHz is the slowest 286 processor out there. Unfortunatly I don't have a motherboard for this CPU so I can't benchmark it to compare with the 8MHz 8088/286. > Read more

As mentioned in the story of this 8MHz 286 some companies made 286's running at 20 or 25MHz. Harris was one of those manufacturers to get these 286-beasts on the planet.

I bought the 20MHz 286 long time ago and haven't seen another 20 or 25MHz 286 (with motherboard) for quite a long time. Only every now and then some pop up on eBay, but with working motherboard they are quite rare.

Unfortunately there is one caveat with my Hedaka motherboard for the 286: it has 1 wait-state memory access. This hurts performance and will cause the system to perform in the ballpark of a 16MHz 286 in several cases.

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A faster, but not the fastest, sort of the 286 processor. This one is mounted onto a Promise VLB hard drive controller and was made by Siemens. > Read more

Technically the same as this CPU. This particular model is more than four years newer and has a sSpec number etched on top. > Read more

Technically the same as this CPU. This particular model is more than two years newer and has a sSpec number etched on top. > Read more

See this CPU which is almost the same. They are both early '86 and lack a sSpec number. > Read more

This is a CPU I like because of two reasons: it's quite basic and noticeably faster than a 8086 / 8088. Secondly it's the packaging. We all know today's Land Grid Array (LGA) CPU's like the Core 2, i7 and second/third generation Opteron CPU's but most people don't know that 2004 wasn't the first time LGA-like CPU's were produced. The 286 processor can be seen in three types: PGA (with pins), CLCC (ceramic leadless carrier chip) and PLCC (plastic leadless carrier chip). CLCC is the one that looks a bit like today's LGA sockets.

The first 286 (running at 6MHz) was introduced in 1982 and was used several years after. The last 286 CPU's probably shipped in early 90's and featured clock frequencies of 16MHz, 20MHz and even 25MHz! The last two are very hard to find (combined with motherboard that is) as newer CPU's like the 386 and 486 were already available at the time. However, the low-end 386SX-20 and 25 aren't faster than high-end 286's at 25MHz. The only practical differences can be found in features (i.e. 32-bit and switching between real and protected mode).

Compared to the 8086 / 8088 the 286 had more performance per clock cycle, a 24-bit address bus to address up to 16MB RAM and the 286 could run in protected mode. Unfortunately the 286 could not get out of the protected mode (back to real mode) without resetting the CPU. This caused that programmers didn't start to use the protected mode until the arrival of the 386 in 1985. > Read more