Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual

  • Volume 1: Basic Architecture (pdf).
    Chapters 3-6 contain useful information. Note that much of this documention is irrelevant - we are only running in flat addressing mode, we do not take into account the features specific to the 64-bit architecture, and GAS (the GNU assembler) does not support the full instruction set. The overall document is 468 pages long. You probably don't want to print it out.

  • Volume 2A: Instruction Set Reference, A-M (pdf).
    Volume 2B: Instruction Set Reference, N-Z (pdf).
    Chapter 3 (Volume 2A) and 4 (Volume 2B) contain a detailed description of every instruction. Note that they list the operands in the reverse order from their ordering in GAS. These manuals are 744/612 pages long. You definitely don't want to print them out.

  • Volume 3A: System Programming Guide, Part 1 (pdf).
    Volume 3B: System Programming Guide, Part 2 (pdf).
    Volume 3A contains lots of useful information on the interface between the hardware and the operating system, including cache and TLB specs, virtual memory, exceptions and interrupt handling, and processes.