From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 28 06:42:20 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 322FF16A4CE for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2004 06:42:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.broadpark.no (mail.broadpark.no [217.13.4.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3939543D2D for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2004 06:42:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from henrik.w.lund@hiof.no) Received: from hiof.no (61.80-202-129.nextgentel.com [80.202.129.61]) by mail.broadpark.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0DDC5A70 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:42:17 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <4040A9FA.50801@hiof.no> Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:47:22 +0100 From: Henrik W Lund User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040224 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, no MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 0.82.6.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: Considering an AMD64 system... X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:42:20 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greetings! I'm considering investing in an AMD64-system, mainly for home/desktop use (gaming, programming for fun and just generally goofing around, trying stuff out), and as such do not need any high-end dual Opteron setup. I'm thinking of going in on the low-end (AMD Athlon 64 3000+), mainly due to financial reasons. Either way, it'll be a major step up from my current P3 733... Now, since I want to run my favourite OS on the system, I want to know if the amd64 architecture is well supported. I know it says on the website that amd64 is a Tier 1 architecture, but from reading this list and checking out docs, it seems as if it's just a teensy bit unstable. Or is this due to fragility of the hardware (with memory lockups, freezing and such)? It should be stated that I am not exactly a newbie when it comes to FreeBSD, but in no way am I a wiz either. I have a modicum of programming skills, but I doubt it that they'll do me any good if my system goes down with some cryptic error message. Now, if the amd64 is indeed fully supported, this leads me to another question: what hardware is supported? I'm mainly thinking of mainboards and their chipsets here, as I reckon most of the regular hardware (graphics cards, sound cards, etc) are compatible with both the amd64 and the i386 platform (if I got the wrong idea here, please tell me!). What chipsets would you recommend? I kinda have my eye on the nForce chipset, as I understand this is good for multimedia (and gaming), but I'm open to suggestions. Many questions here, any and all answers are welcomed. Thanks in advance! Henrik W Lund Student at Østfold College, Department of Computer Science. PS: please (b)cc: me, as I'm not (yet) a subscriber to this list. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAQKn6nzC5lcw9P3IRAns7AJ9wQJPCDc9bnaIzwE+8xhA/yehYMACfT8/i JgUUvumghKidTR0a2zN7fj0= =kbge -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----