Today's world is AMD64, Armv7, and soon Aarch64. Everything else is dead, Jim.

[Dirk Broer]

Seven years ago some redditor wrote
"Today's world is AMD64, Armv7, and soon Aarch64. Everything else is dead, Jim. No-one is investing enough money and brain power in the other architectures. Only a few people actually know about the rest of the ecosystem (MIPS, Power 8...), and no-one gives a shit anyway."

It has now come to the point that even armv7 is on the way out, too: No big Linux distro is bringing out new 32-bit versions of their distro version(s), Apple OS 10 Catalina and IOS 11 are Apple's first 64-bit only OS versions and Android 12 is the first Android version without 32-bit support. But are things really as bleak as the instruction set (AMD64, Armv7) and CPU-architecture (Aarch64) juggling redditor claims?

If we stick to our beloved BOINC, a BOINC-platform (https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BoincPlatforms) is defined by the combination of hardware (CPU) and Software (OS) and in truth there were more active platforms some 20 years ago than there are today. But that doesn't mean they are dead, Jim.

Back when Seti@Home was the most popular distributed computing project there was a handy add-on, SetiSpy by the late Roelof Engelbrecht, that let you see the relative strength of you CPU under Windows. Linux users might still remember Roberto Virga's KSetiSpy clone of it.
430431429
As you can see there are scores for some early 64-bit heavies such as Alpha and Itanium CPUs, but there are also scores for old 32-bit 80386 and 80486 CPUs. You might even argue that already by those old figures the future was definitely 64-bit, but you might also wonder where those phenomenally good DEC Alpha CPUs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha) went, or those SUN Ultra SPARC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC)s.

What you do not yet see in the old tables are ARM CPUs, let alone RISC-V (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V) ones (BTW, RISC-V is one of the few consumer CPU Architectures that is already prepared for 128-bit computing). I specifically write 'consumer CPU', because there are very capable enterprise server CPUs, that are not affected by the gloomy reddit forecast.

Today's BOINC platforms cater mainly for the x86-64 architecture/AMD64 instruction set, running Windows, Linux and, if you're lucky, Apple OSX, FreeBSD or even OpenBSD.

BOINC-platform-wise:


windows_x86_64
Microsoft Windows running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU


x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU


x86_64-apple-darwin
Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU


x86_64-android-linux-gnu
Android running on AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU


x86_64-pc-freebsd
FreeBSD on Intel-compatible 64-bit


x86_64-pc-openbsd
OpenBSD on Intel-compatible 64-bit


Some projects also cater form the ARM architecture/ARMv8a instruction set, running Linux or Android.


aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
Linux running on ARM 64-bit armv8a


arm64-apple-darwin
Mac OS running on ARM 64-bit armv8a


aarch64-android-linux-gnu
Android running on ARM 64-bit armv8a


mips64-android-linux-gnu
Android running on MIPS 64-bit (Big Endian)


mips64el-android-linux-gnu
Android running on MIPS 64-bit (Little Endian)


N.B.: There is Windows for ARM, just as there is Android for x86-64, but the projects supporting it have still to be found, or are inactive (Seti@Home for Android/x86-64).

Theoretically possible BOINC-platforms could include:


aarch64-unknown-freebsd
FreeBSD running on ARM 64-bit armv8a


x86_64-pc-haiku
Haiku on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU


power64-ibm-aix
AIX v7+ running on IBM Power7+


mips64el-linux-gnu
Linux running on MIPS 64-bit (Little Endian)


riscv64-linux-gnu
Linux running on RISC-V 64-bit


loongarch-linux-gnu
Linux running on Loongson 64-bit (Little Endian)


alpha-Sunway-linux-gnu
Linux running on Sunway SW26010


Loongson builds forth on the MIPS64 ISA, Sunway does so on the Alpha ISA.

To paraphrase the redditor "Today's world is AMD64, Aarch64, and soon RISC-V. Everything else is dead, Jim." But we know now why Jim doesn't listen...
To paraphrase the next video clip "There's Loongsons on the starboard bow"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE

[Dirk Broer]

It is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA), and some claim the '-V' suffix means that it is the fifth. The fifth? The name RISC-V would then have been chosen to represent the fifth major RISC ISA design from UC Berkeley (RISC-I, RISC-II, SOAR, and SPUR being the first four). Others claim that the '-V' suffix means 'Vector', because they needed a 64-bit ISA with enough opcode space for vector processor ISA design exploration, so "risc-vee" for vector.

The first halfway capable SBC with a RISC-V SOC -the StarFive's VisionFive 2- has been launched recently, and the first serious reviews shows that despite the enthusiasm the the reviewers show to the board and its documentation, there is still a long way to go before it can be as successful as the Raspberry Pi.
Christopher Barnatt showing the VisionFive 2: RISC-V Quad Core Low Cost SBC
https://youtu.be/ykKnc86UtXg?t=3
Jeff Geerling - RISC-V Business: Testing StarFive's VisionFive 2 SBC (https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/risc-v-business-testing-starfives-visionfive-2-sbc)
Armbian for the VisionFive 2 (https://www.armbian.com/visionfive2/)

[Nflight]

Photonic computers will be the new ultimate cruncher. They have been kept in the dark for way too long. Their time is ripe for exposure, hang on to your boot straps as they are FAST.

[Dirk Broer]

Photonic computers will be the new ultimate cruncher. They have been kept in the dark for way too long. Their time is ripe for exposure, hang on to your boot straps as they are FAST.

I believe photonic chips, powering quantum computers will be the future -in the future. RISC-V is right next door, ready to crunch BOINC in 2024, I hope. Photonic Quantum computers may be available in another 10 or 20 years at soonest.

The only thing standing in the way for RISC-V at the moment, BOINC-wise, is a project that offers an application for this new platform (BOINC platforms (https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BoincPlatforms) are a mix of CPU architecture and OS). There is a RISC-V SBC, Armbian offers an OS for that board.
That's not to say that you have things running in a few moments:

https://youtu.be/ZSRvTZyS0KI?t=2

[Dirk Broer]

459
The latest RISC-V boards, compared on Geekbench 6 scores. Click on it to make bigger and readable.
A word of warning from my not-so-enthusiastic alter ego: :puppy_dog_eyes:

Even the latest RISC-V boards are, BOINC-wise, equipped with a non-functional CPU, a non-functional GPU and a dito non-functional NPU.

They have much in common with the older ARM SBC's, albeit that the CPU on those is at least supported.

The GPU on both platforms (Linux/RISC-V and Linux/ARM) needs some major programming to be able to run OpenCL BOINC applications -and be recognised as such by the BOINC client, though the latter just needs some libraries and a decent dedicated driver.
And the much advertised NPUs aren't even supported in BOINC on the Windows/x86-64 and Linux/x86-64 platforms yet -as I noticed after installing the NPU software for my Ryzen 7 8700G..