The digital image presented below reveals surface details present on an AMD 486DX4 100MHz microprocessor die (representing the complete integrated circuit). Busses, registers, and memory cache units were highlighted using oblique illumination with red and blue filters coupled to fiber optics light pipes and a tungsten-halogen source.

The 100 megahertz version of the AMD 486DX4 is a 32-bit microprocessor, which features an internal processor clock speed that is three times the external 33-megahertz speed of the memory bus and the motherboard. Note that, despite the name, the DX4 does not run at four times the memory bus speed. The DX3 was an internal Intel designation for a 2.5X clock multiplier designed to operate within the 486 microprocessor line, which was developed past the prototype versions, but never shipped. Eventually, AMD released the 5x86, a clock quadrupled version, which rivaled the performance of the early Intel Pentiums.

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