cpu's 'n motherboards

[jhu]

so what's the feasability of using making a new non-x86 cpu that you just plug into current socketed motherboards? i think that'd be pretty neat. how about a socket a powerpc 970?

 

[CTho9305]

Sure... as long as you rewrite the bios in PPC. Apparently Slot A is physically and electrically compatible with one of the Alpha lines - but there aren't any alpha bioses available for SlotA mobos.

Why would you want to do this though?

 

[jhu]

why not?

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: jhu
why not?

 

[Peter]

It has been done with Alpha processors, which is where AMD borrowed the original Athlon bus.

You need an Alpha firmware in the board instead of an x86 BIOS, and the chipset also needs to be able to switch all the legacy x86 nonsense off and present a clean, linear, unobstructed memory map. There have been a handful of Slot A boards that ran either an Athlon or an Alpha - using the AMD 750 chipset that could. The Alpha community was not amused about the rather low performance of the chipset though, so the idea didn't get pursued any further.

regards, Peter

 

[K6]

http://www.mikerohard.de/up1100spec.pdf

here ad AMD 750 based mainboard for CPU Alpha 21264A

 

[Locutus4657]

It is totally compatible with any EV6 Alpha, and you're actually mistaken about there being no Alpha BIOSes. Actually there were a few AMD 751 and AMD 761 based Alpha systems out there!

Carlo

Originally posted by: CTho9305
Sure... as long as you rewrite the bios in PPC. Apparently Slot A is physically and electrically compatible with one of the Alpha lines - but there aren't any alpha bioses available for SlotA mobos.

Why would you want to do this though?