Finally: I have an Athlon 64

[kernel64]

I've finally done it and bought an Athlon 64 without crippling myself (i.e. saved up over a year!)

I would dearly like to ditch the x86 architecture and write an OS for a nice, clean PowerPC machine, but there are problems. For one, OpenFirmware docs are hard to come by or non-existant; I can't afford a 64-bit PowerPC machine; there isn't the wealth of message boards and forums dedicated to OSdev on the PowerPC; and finally most people would be using the MacOS X and very few would use an OS I developed for the PowerPC. (Those that don't would probably be very happy with 64-bit Linux).

So here I am, waiting for my new Athlon 64 box to arrive. It's a very cute machine: ThermalTake black "skull" case with totally screw-less design, LCD panel with temperature and fan controls and front USB/firewire ports; ThermalTake 480W "Silent Pure Power" PSU; 1GB DDR PC2700 SDRAM, 160GB + 80GB + 40GB 7,200 rpm ATA Western Digital disks each with 8MB cache (the 80GB and 40GB disks I already had); an ASUS ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB AGP 8x graphics card; an LG DVD burner; a Mitsubishi DV155 15in flat panel LCD monitor; and of course the motherboard and CPU: Gigabyte board and AMD Athlon 64 3000.

Not a bad machine for the price (AUD$1,400 or ~USD$1,100). Things tend to be expensive in my country, so I was over the moon with this. It was a good compromise between waiting say 6 months to afford a really hairy AMD Athlon 64FX with 2GB RAM and 256MB 16x PCI-Express Radeon card and 19in LCD Monitor, 400GB serial ATA disk, etc. Ah, well. Can't have everything!

Anyone else here an AMD enthusiast?

I'd like to start a special thread/website page for OS-deving on AMD 64-bit CPUs and gather resources. I have the PDFs from AMD's website: 5 volumes of programming manuals, BIOS and kernel developers' guide, miscellaneous tech notes, etc.

Anyone else working on an OS that will be designed for 64-bit systems? I'd love to hear from ya!

[AR]

I recently helped someone else buy a 64bit computer. We went to a computer fair, the specs it has are:

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ [939 socket]
• 160GB with 8MB Cache SATA HDD (Can't remeber the rpm)
• LiteOn DVDRW (Can't remember exact stats)
• 1GB DDR-400
• WinFast nVidia 6600GT PCI-Express Video card
• 6xUSB 2.0, 3xFirewire, 4xSATA on a Gigabyte nVidia nForce4 chipset motherboard with 1 PCI-Express and 4 standard PCI slots (onboard 8-channel Audio, 1GBit Ethernet and even firewall chipsets)
• Don't remember the cooling, probably ThermalTake
• Generic Case with good ventilation
• Included an optical PS/2 mouse and PS/2 Keyboard, not including monitor, speakers or MSWindows.

Price: ~AUD$1250

I wanted to get one as well but I'm holding off for AMD to release their Dual-Core 64bit Desktop processors before I upgrade [Due in about June].

More relevant to your question, I'm trying to design my kernel to seperate the architecture specific components so that I can simply change one of the Include directories and the architecture code directory to build for a different architecture (Only x86 & AMD64 planned). However I haven't actually started coding any sort of 64bit support as I have no hardware to test it on yet but it's something I keep in mind as most new computers should be 64bit but legacy drag will occur for around 5 years give or take so 32bit support will be required for a while still.

The Wiki page is here and rather empty: http://www.osdev.org/osfaq2/index.php/Tell%20me%20about%20x86%2064%20bits%20CPU%20...

[srg]

I'd personally rather throw my main machine off a cliff than put an Intel chip in it, so yep I'm an AMD enthusiast. Still only on an Athlon XP 3200+ at the moment but I'd like to go to Athlon64 when I can afford it.

srg

P.S I also can't stand motherboards by gigabyte, in my experience they don't last longer than 2 weeks before just dieing, but that's my experience.

As for other architechtures, at the moment I'm looking at the m68k.

[kernel64]

I've looked at m68k as well, especially considering embedded systems. I think m68k CPUs are hugely popular there.

Apparently the new m68k's, the modern ones, are quite decent and have MMUs and just about all the features of today's mainstream desktop CPUs.

[srg]

I've looked at m68k as well, especially considering embedded systems. I think m68k CPUs are hugely popular there.

Apparently the new m68k's, the modern ones, are quite decent and have MMUs and just about all the features of today's mainstream desktop CPUs.

I'm looking at m68k Commodore Amiga at the moment as I once used to be an Amiga enthusiast (it's where my dislike for intel came along).

The best alrounder IMHO that is most similar to the 386 + 387 feature set which most of us are working with is the 68030 with the 68882 FPU (BTW Unlike the 386, you don't have to flush the entire TLB with the 030, or ATC in motorolla speak).

On the 020, you need a seperate MMU which, on the amiga at least was very rare (I've only ever seen one A2000 expansion board with it.

The 68040, the MMU is programmed slightly differently (and I think it has two) and I think AFAIK the 060 is slightly different again. Also the 040 and 060 internal FPU is only a cut down version of the 68882, the rest of the instructions are emulated in a library.

Whatch out for the EC versions of the chips, e.g. the 68EC030 has no, or a faulty MMU.

srg

[srg]

BTW The AMD64 is not bad, although you need a TSS (others will fill you in better here) most of the old segmentation junk is gone for good.

srg

[bubach]

Hmm.. I am thinking of getting one.
I found this (don't feel like translate it, but i guess that you'll understand most of it.. ):

# Datorsystem
# Black Thunder Miditower Black 300W ATX + cooling + S-ATA str?madapter
# Abit NF8 nForce3 250Gb 2DDR-DIMM 5PCI SATA Raid Audio GB-LAN Firewire Socket754 ATX
# AMD Athlon64 Newcastle 3000+ AX 2000MHz/2.0GHz 512kb Boxed (with cpu-cooler!) Socket754
# A-DATA 512Mb DDR-DIMM PC3200 400MHz 184pin
# Hitachi Deskstar 13G0252 80Gb 7200rpm 8Mb cache S-ATA
# Standard 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy BLACK/SVART
# Samsung CD-RW SW-252FEAB 52x32x52x 2Mb buffer BLACK/SVART BULK IDE
# Hightech Excalibur ATI Radeon 9250 128Mb DDR TV-out DVI RETAIL AGP
# ESD-armband, eng?ngs f?r anv?ndning vid egen montering/ESD-bracelet for own assembly

http://www.datorbutiken.com/se/default.php?artId=C-OHA1-DEL
Which is 765,33 AUD or in euro: 471,60 EUR

[AR]

The system I posted without the better Video card, additional RAM and drive space was originally AUD$890, (120GB HDD [SATA], 512MB RAM [DDR-400], (Approx)9200 PCI-E Radeon), I probably should have mentioned that it's a 939 socket since 754s are likely to be cheaper.

P.S I also can't stand motherboards by gigabyte, in my experience they don't last longer than 2 weeks before just dieing, but that's my experience.

I've had the exact opposite experience, I've bought and helped others buy several AMD+Gigabyte based computers and they've all worked perfectly, the one time I didn't get a gigabyte board, the computer choked on the RAM, wouldn't accept more than 1 stick, not to mention various odd program crashes (it was a gaming computer) despite the video card and sound chipset meeting the requirements.

[Candy]

I've looked at m68k as well, especially considering embedded systems. I think m68k CPUs are hugely popular there.

Apparently the new m68k's, the modern ones, are quite decent and have MMUs and just about all the features of today's mainstream desktop CPUs.

I'm looking at m68k Commodore Amiga at the moment as I once used to be an Amiga enthusiast (it's where my dislike for intel came along).

The best alrounder IMHO that is most similar to the 386 + 387 feature set which most of us are working with is the 68030 with the 68882 FPU (BTW Unlike the 386, you don't have to flush the entire TLB with the 030, or ATC in motorolla speak).

On the 020, you need a seperate MMU which, on the amiga at least was very rare (I've only ever seen one A2000 expansion board with it.

I've heard of this other processor, called the Intel 80486, which was also better than the 386 in terms of not flushing the entire TLB, being faster in most instructions and more efficient. Why do you compare the 68030 with the 386 if the 386 is barely used anymore?

[srg]

I've looked at m68k as well, especially considering embedded systems. I think m68k CPUs are hugely popular there.

Apparently the new m68k's, the modern ones, are quite decent and have MMUs and just about all the features of today's mainstream desktop CPUs.

I'm looking at m68k Commodore Amiga at the moment as I once used to be an Amiga enthusiast (it's where my dislike for intel came along).

The best alrounder IMHO that is most similar to the 386 + 387 feature set which most of us are working with is the 68030 with the 68882 FPU (BTW Unlike the 386, you don't have to flush the entire TLB with the 030, or ATC in motorolla speak).

On the 020, you need a seperate MMU which, on the amiga at least was very rare (I've only ever seen one A2000 expansion board with it.

I've heard of this other processor, called the Intel 80486, which was also better than the 386 in terms of not flushing the entire TLB, being faster in most instructions and more efficient. Why do you compare the 68030 with the 386 if the 386 is barely used anymore?

Traditionally, the 68030 is comapired to the 386, the 486 is comapired to the 68040, probably because of the intrgrated FPU (The 030 uses the external 68881/2 chip). The 68060 is compaired to the Pentium because it has dual pipelines.

In fact the 030 has a 3 stage pipeline, 256byte Inst & 256byte data caches so it's more like the 486, but the external FPU is why it's thought of like the 386. It's performance is also more like that of the 386 AFAIK.

srg

[kernel64]

Sadly nearly everything I wanted wasn't in stock, and I wanted a new computer "right now" so I've had to settle for an Intel P4 3GHz system and a less snazzy case. But I've got a fairly decent screen, a Mitsubishi DV175 17in flat panel LCD monitor.

So I will use this for a few weeks until I get some more money together and get an Athlon 64 and new board. Maybe I will go for one of the new boards with PCI-Express, and get a new graphics card. Why I just can't wait another 8 weeks is because this system I have is making annoying noises and it keeps buzzing, which is probably the PSU vibrating against the case, so it provided me with a good excuse to shove it out and get a new one ASAP (I could have just bought a new case, but I wanted a new monitor, and with the money I'd spend there, why stop at that? Plus I'd waited forever already...)

Very disappointing, but anyway, just another 8 weeks to go before I can have my Athlon 64...

[distantvoices]

*rofl* And I'm still working on getting a decent dual xeon server stuffed together - with decent water cooling, mark you *gg*, because the coolers are that way of *loud* you'd likely throw 'em both outta window. The NMB minebea PSU (they don't produce them anymore, so I've ressorted to ebay for that one and got it by pure luck) is my least worry *gg* - hm --- what 's I wanna say? ah - for 16 months now. Here a piece, there a piece.

[srg]

hmm As I said in my first poste, I'd rather throw my main machine off a cliff than put an Intel chip in it, especially a Netburst based one.

hehe You was desperate for a new machine to want to spend that kind on money twice rather than just waiting.

Still the Athlon 64 should blow your P4 away, especially at code compiling.

srg

P.S. Going back to your first poste, I've ne experience of the 64-bit RISC chips so I can't help you, but I was thinking of dabbling in an Alpha 21164 when I have money and another comes up on ebay with AlphaPC board. ;D

[kernel64]

P.S. Going back to your first poste, I've ne experience of the 64-bit RISC chips so I can't help you, but I was thinking of dabbling in an Alpha 21164 when I have money and another comes up on ebay with AlphaPC board.

Ooooh... nice! And how much roughly do they go for?

[srg]

P.S. Going back to your first poste, I've ne experience of the 64-bit RISC chips so I can't help you, but I was thinking of dabbling in an Alpha 21164 when I have money and another comes up on ebay with AlphaPC board.

Ooooh... nice! And how much roughly do they go for?

Not usually more than ?150. CPU motherboard and ECC ram.

srg