IBM computer "world's fastest"

[[FnG]magnolia]

The computer is capable of calculating in one hour what otherwise would take 6.7 billion people using hand calculators 320 years to complete if they worked non-stop.

I've just been reading this article from the BBC and am struggling to get my head around the above quoted paragraph. I imagine they've used that comparison to provoke that very sense of 'woah!' but I wonder how the supercomputer would compare to, say, a mid-range home PC? Regardless, those are some pretty bonkers stats.

Imagine what Skyrim would look like on it

 

[The Halk]

Journalism doesn't require numeracy

Did you add any new sigs yet? I've not F5ed through to see yet.

 

[Rich_L]

I'd spec a replica and overclock it by 1Mhz for the lulz to get the title

 

[BDEE]

I am more confused about the fact there is 2 women in the photo of the team who devised it?

 

[RomanNose]

13 petaflops, you do the maths. I can't even remember what peta is, is it ^18?
Usually clock speed is the same as flops.

 

[The Halk]

I am more confused about the fact there is 2 women in the photo of the team who devised it?

I am more confused about the fact there are 2 women in the photo of the team who devised it?

I've fixed that for you - feeling pretty intelligent and smug?

 

[BDEE]

I've fixed that for you - feeling pretty intelligent and smug?

Can always rely on you Halk.

 

[jsmoke]

Folding could be faster?

 

[The Halk]

Can always rely on you Halk.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Journalism doesn't require numeracy

Did you add any new sigs yet? I've not F5ed through to see yet.

The narrator one is new I think

Watching magnolias' sigs is better than watching sport TBH.

 

[The Halk]

Unreliable narrator? I'm sure I'd seen it before.. although I think he did call someone that in a thread which amused me greatly.

 

[MissChief]

Obligatory 'but will it run Crysis?' response.

 

[KNiVES]

Obligatory 'but will it run Crysis?' response.

It's probably running integrated graphics and internet explorer 6 to be fair. These corporate guys are absolutely terrible like that.

 

[ChroniC]

I'm terrible with math so someone can correct me if I get this wrong, but I have seen before that GFX cards handle flops better than CPU's

A high end card can do something like 500giga flops. or 500,000,000,000 calculations a second. Where as one of these super computers can do 16petaflops which is 16,000,000,000,000,000 calculations a second.

Which is my maths is even remotely right, makes it 3200x faster than your average home pc processor, but thats what youd expect from 1.5million processors. lol.

 

[Something Else]

i need specs dammit! give me ghz's!! give me r.a.m!

 

[SeraphX]

i need specs dammit! give me ghz's!! give me r.a.m!

Probably around the same Ghz you would get in a regular machine tbh. it won't be more than 4Ghz, due to the heat 1500 cpu's would put out.

As for ram, well, quite a lot more i would think. I'd say in the Terabytes area tbh, heck could be more

 

[robj20]

Specs
1,024 x 1.6 GHz 18/16 core /rack
16,384GB Ram /rack

Made of 96 racks
Total CPUs 98,304
Total Memory 1572864 GB

 

[Mark A]

Quite a bit faster than the UK's top super computer, looking at the top 100 super computer list.

 

[Phate]

Thats all very well and good....but what do they then use such a creation for?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!

 

[RomanNose]

Thats all very well and good....but what do they then use such a creation for?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!

I think they are using it for simulating fission reactions.