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329253. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

Thanks @geennaam, it looks like great machine! I will spare space for it in my room!

329251. AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup - April 2025

My Amiga song "Sacrifice" appeared just at the end of April, a bit too late for this roundup but rest assure that I will have many great songs for May 2025. Don't worry ;)

329237. Emulator hardware: CPU Boost Kit available for "A1200 NG"

Very promising! This should be interesting.

329222. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

@Minuous
We all see things differently, but it's an undeniable fact that Amiga is INDEED moving more and more to native ARM. The A600GS and the A1200NG are evidence of that. AROS was the right choice to make this happen, because, like it or not, AROS is the most powerful implementation of AmigaOS. You have 4 versions of AROS already. 68k version, x86 version and PPC version, adding both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version of AROS. So it's pretty obvious why it was chosen to use AROS components to create a more ARM native AmigaOS, hence the nickname "AmiBench" used in A600GS and the A1200NG. I respect your opinion but the truth is undeniable. The process moving to ARM has already started.

@all
Despite being a PPC hardware, I still find it this new hardware addition very interesting, and if the cheap price is right and running AmigaOS4, this could be well worth the cheap money. The support for NVMe SSD is a must-have and the speed should be great as well. It's also nice to see the return of Altivec support, which is extremely useful for multimedia purposes. Great work with the hardware. This should be interesting ;)

329218. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

They don't "fully support the Classic Amiga m68k stuff", it's based on AROS which is not fully compatible. The vast majority of the code is 68K code. The fact that it is running on an ARM host is irrelevant; I could just as easily say "Amiga is now fully moving onto x86" as there are far more WinUAE users.

329216. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

@1
If you look at the A600GS and A1200NG using ARM technology, they fully support the Classic 68k Amiga stuff. The OS used is called AmiBench, partly based on AROS components, as well as AmigaKit's own Enhancer components used. Most of the code is still 68k for legacy compatibility and functionality, but more and more of the OS, games and programs are being ported to use ARM natively. It's an interesting step into the future, and something I greatly welcome.

329215. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

@Minuos
Why it is a strange theory? This is already happening with the introduction of A600GS and A1200NG by AmigaKit. Matthew Leaman has confirmed the complete move to ARM a process they're doing. While I welcome this low cost PPC Amiga hardware, once has to speculate if it happens a bit too late, since the focus is more on ARM for the Amiga, actually. The A600GS and the new A1200NG, both based on ARM technology, have in acccording to AmigaKit themselves, been a huge success already.

I have been told by Matthew Leaman himself that the performance of the A600GS with the ARM CPU is equal to that of the PPC on the X5000, minus the RadeonRX graphic performance of the X5000. Matthew Leaman of AmigaKit even further mentioned that the upgraded ARM kit for the A1200NG running at 1.7Ghz, will be even more powerful and faster than the X5000. A Revision 4 of the A1200NG motherboard is likely to have a PCIe slot for a possible RadeonRX based Polaris graphic board.

Those A600GS and A1200NG with ARM have a prize triple as low as the X5000 and the power of the most expensive X5000. It's an irony of sort, but it's actually the case.

Perhaps you too should check the facts before claiming this to be a "strange" theory? Nothing wrong with cheap PPC hardware, but the future is in ARM. The whole computer industry is choosing it for obvious reasons, and this is also the case with the Amiga, like it or not. There's really nothing more to say about that.

329210. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, FPGA (Update 3)

"Amiga is now fully moving onto ARM"? No, I don't know where how you came up with this strange theory... :-/

329206. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, onboard FPGA (Update)

@1

Fully? You mean OS3.x is compiled for ARM ?

329201. New PPC hardware announced: "Mirari" featuring USB3, NVME, onboard FPGA (Update)

What started out as a teaser ended up as a bit of a messy full disclosure. I guess we couldn't hold back our excitement any longer.
So here's some additional information which hopefully explains what this project is about and what it is capable of.

Background and Mission:
The Mirari board is designed with the intention to provide the Amiga community with low-cost PowerPC hardware. Therefore, the design is based on a bare minimum with nice-to-haves based on what makes sense, but always with the mission in mind. Due to the minor cost difference between a dual-core T1022 and the quad-core T1042, we've decided on the T1042, resulting in a low-cost board with mid-range specifications.

The T10x2 is based on the e5500 core, the same core found in the X5000. Initial benchmarks confirm that the single-core performance difference is just the clock difference, with a 1.4 GHz T1042 performing at 70% of the 2GHz X5020. The design also accommodates the pin and footprint-compatible T2081, allowing for a mid-cost board with high-end specifications. To ensure compatibility, we had to make some compromises to the T10x2 design.

Memory Support:
The T10x2 memory controller supports both 64-bit DDR3L and DDR4 at 800 MHz (DDR1600).
The T2081 memory controller supports both 64-bit DDR3L at 933MHz (DDR1866) and DDR3 at 1066MHz (DDR2133).
The common denominator is DDR3L, hence the choice for a 1.35V SODIMM slot.
If we had focused solely on the T1042, DDR4 would have been the better choice from an availability standpoint. However, since the clock speed is the same but latencies are larger for DDR4, the overall memory performance would have been lower.
For the T2081 we can increase the memory controller voltage to 1.5V which would enable the DDR2133 interface speed.
Although we have only one memory controller, initial Linux benchmarks show that the single and SMT memory performance is at least on par with the X5020.

- Audio:
For longevity reasons, we've decided to use an industrial-grade audio codec from TI (TLV320AIC3204). This codec is routed to three audio jacks at the rear (mic, line-in, line-out) and to an onboard HD audio connector. Additionally, there's a digital optical output (Toslink). The T1042 features an I2S interface for direct connection to external audio codecs, while the T208x does not. Therefore, we've implemented the I2S and S/PDIF controllers in the FPGA. This means there's no audio driver readily available for Linux. For OS4 and MorphOS, I have experience writing AHI drivers, so consider this covered.

- Storage:
The mainboard features two SATA ports and two NVMe slots. However, we had to make some tough choices again:

For the T1042 variant, there's always one SATA port and one NVMe slot available. The second SATA/NVMe is mutually exclusive, currently jumper-based but eventually u-boot configurable.
The T2081 does not have SATA interfaces. If you need SATA, it must be added with a PCIe card. However, keep in mind that SATA is being phased out, with modern PCs and laptops often using NVMe over SATA SSDs.
Tested Linux distributions are all booting and running from NVMe. I also have experience with NVMe drivers, so consider this covered for OS4 and MorphOS as well.
USB3: We based u-boot on the latest stable version available earlier this year, 2024.10. This has many benefits over using the 2014-2018 versions available in other PowerPC hardware. However, the developers behind u-boot changed the driver model around 2018, with a transition period ending in 2020. This means u-boot is a mixture of old drivers and drivers compliant with the new model. For USB on NXP SoC, there's a catch: NXP didn't rewrite their OHCI and EHCI drivers for the new model. Activating the XHCI driver for USB3 support causes conflicts. Fortunately, this is not an issue under Linux, so USB3 works correctly, but we have work to do for u-boot.

- Prototypes:
We have ordered 5 prototypes and managed to make them all work (100% yield). This was a great concern to me personally, as the layout requirements for the 780 balls FPGA stretched our supplier's capabilities to its limits. The boards run stably and have undergone hours of burn-in testing with Linux stress testing tools. One observation is that the CPUs run around 30°C idle and around 40°C under full load, which is good for overclocking potential. The core power supply has quite some headroom to support this. You can check out the Hyperion Entertainment X5000 Linux-only forum for posts from Skateman. Whenever he talks about his 4-core e5500, he is actually talking about this board.


Full Specifications of the Current Design:
-Form Factor: micro-ATX compatible, 244x170mm (L x W)
-T10x2 (2-4 e5500 cores) up to 1.5GHz / T2081 (4 dual-threaded e6500 cores with Altivec 2.0) up to 1.8GHz
-DDR3L (1.35V) SODIMM with rank interleaving (T10x2 up to DDR1600; T2081 up to DDR2133)
-PCIe x16 slot with 4 lanes occupied (PCIe 2.0)
-PCIe x4 slot with one lane occupied (T10x2 PCIe 2.0; T2081 PCIe 3.0)
-PCIe x1 slot with one lane occupied (PCIe 2.0)
-2x SATA 2.0 (T10x2 only, at 300Mbit/s)
-2x NVMe slots (second slot mutually exclusive with second SATA port)
-8 USB 2.0 ports (4 connected to the rear I/O; 4 connected to internal USB 2.0 headers)
-4 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports (2 connected to the rear I/O; 2 connected to an internal USB 3.0 header)
-10/100/1000Mbit Ethernet
-192kHz/24bit analog audio (mic, line-in, line-out to the rear I/O; mic, headphone to the HD audio connector)
-S/PDIF / Toslink digital audio out
-9-pin RS232 to the rear I/O
-Micro SD card (push-in push-out) as boot source
-24-pin ATX power connector
-4-pin ATX CPU power connector
-CPU fan header with PWM
-Case fan header


Storage:
The mainboard features two SATA ports and two NVMe slots. However, we had to make some tough choices again:

For the T1042 variant, there's always one SATA port and one NVMe slot available. The second SATA/NVMe is mutually exclusive, currently jumper-based but eventually u-boot configurable.
The T2081 does not have SATA interfaces. If you need SATA, it must be added with a PCIe card. However, keep in mind that SATA is being phased out, with modern PCs and laptops often using NVMe over SATA SSDs.
Tested Linux distributions are all booting and running from NVMe. I also have experience with NVMe drivers, so consider this covered for OS4 and MorphOS as well.
USB3: We based u-boot on the latest stable version available earlier this year, 2024.10. This has many benefits over using the 2014-2018 versions available in other PowerPC hardware. However, the developers behind u-boot changed the driver model around 2018, with a transition period ending in 2020. This means u-boot is a mixture of old drivers and drivers compliant with the new model. For USB on NXP SoC, there's a catch: NXP didn't rewrite their OHCI and EHCI drivers for the new model. Activating the XHCI driver for USB3 support causes conflicts. Fortunately, this is not an issue under Linux, so USB3 works correctly, but we have work to do for u-boot.

Prototypes: We have ordered 5 prototypes and managed to make them all work (100% yield). This was a great concern to me personally, as the layout requirements for the 780 balls FPGA stretched our supplier's capabilities to its limits. The boards run stably and have undergone hours of burn-in testing with Linux stress testing tools. One observation is that the CPUs run around 30°C idle and around 40°C under full load, which is good for overclocking potential. The core power supply has quite some headroom to support this. You can check out the Hyperion Entertainment X5000 Linux-only forum for posts from Skateman. Whenever he talks about his 4-core e5500, he is actually talking about this board.

Full Specifications of the Current Design:

Form Factor: micro-ATX compatible, 244x170mm (L x W)
-T10x2 (2-4 e5500 cores) up to 1.5GHz / T2081 (4 dual-threaded e6500 cores with Altivec 2.0) up to 1.8GHz
-DDR3L (1.35V) SODIMM with rank interleaving (T10x2 up to DDR1600; T2081 up to DDR2133)
-PCIe x16 slot with 4 lanes occupied (PCIe 2.0)
-PCIe x4 slot with one lane occupied (T10x2 PCIe 2.0; T2081 PCIe 3.0)
-PCIe x1 slot with one lane occupied (PCIe 2.0)
-2x SATA 2.0 (T10x2 only, at 300Mbit/s)
-2x NVMe slots (second slot mutually exclusive with second SATA port)
-8 USB 2.0 ports (4 connected to the rear I/O; 4 connected to internal USB 2.0 headers)
-4 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports (2 connected to the rear I/O; 2 connected to an internal USB 3.0 header)
-10/100/1000Mbit Ethernet
-192kHz/24bit analog audio (mic, line-in, line-out to the rear I/O; mic, -headphone to the HD audio connector)
-S/PDIF / Toslink digital audio out
-9-pin RS232 to the rear I/O
-Micro SD card (push-in push-out) as boot source
-24-pin ATX power connector
-4-pin ATX CPU power connector
-CPU fan header with PWM
-Case fan header