Orders of magnitude (computing)

This list compares various amounts of computing power in instructions per second organized by order of magnitude.

Scientific E notation index: -1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 24

10^-1

Slowest single sentient computation^{[dubious – discuss]}

• 5×10⁻¹ Speed of the average human mental calculation for multiplication using symbols circa 2000 B.C.^{[citation needed]}

10⁰

Reality speed frame of computation

• 1 OP/S the speed of the average human addition calculation using symbols circa 2000 B.C.^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}
• 1 OP/S the speed of Zuse Z1 first fully digital automated computer 1936
• 5 OP/S world record for human addition set

10¹

Faster than human mental reaction computation begins^{[citation needed]}

• 2×10¹ Zuse Z3 1941
• 6×10¹ Upper end of serialized human perception computation (light bulbs in the US do not flicker to the human observer)^{[dubious – discuss]}

10²

Faster than animal perception computation begins^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}

• 1.2×10² Estimated serial perception processing for a double dorsal brain.^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}
• 2×10² Upper end of serialized human through put. This is roughly expressed by the lower limit of accurate event placement on small scales of time (The swing of a conductors arm, the reaction time to lights on a drag strip etc.)^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}
• 2×10² IBM 602 1946 computer.

10³

Kilo scale computing

• 9.2×10⁴ Intel 4004 First commercially available full function CPU on a chip 1971
• 5×10⁵ Colossus computer vacuum tube supercomputer 1943

10⁶

Mega scale computing

• 1×10⁶ Motorola 68000 commercial computing 1979
• 1.2×10⁶ IBM 7030 "Stretch" Vacuum tube supercomputer 1961

10⁹

Giga scale computing

• 1×10⁹ ILLIAC IV 1972 supercomputer does first computational fluid dynamics problems
• 1.354×10⁹ Intel Pentium III commercial computing 1999
• 147.6×10⁹ Intel Core-i7 980X Extreme Edition commercial computing 2010^[1]

10¹²

Tera scale computing

• 1.34×10¹² Intel ASCI Red 1997 Supercomputer
• 1.344×10¹² GeForce GTX 480 from NVIDIA
• 4.64×10¹² Radeon HD 5970 from ATI
• 5.152×10¹² S2050/S2070 1U GPU Computing System from NVIDIA
• 100×10¹² Estimated parallelized throughput of the human brain^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}

10¹⁵

Petascale computing

• 1.026×10¹⁵ IBM Roadrunner 2009 Supercomputer
• 4.3×10¹⁵ Fastest computer system as of 2009 Folding@home Cloud computing
• 20×10¹⁵ IBM Sequoia Circa 2011

10¹⁸

Exascale computing

• 1×10¹⁸ It is estimated that the need for exascale computing will become pressing around 2018^[2]

10²¹

Zetta scale computing

• 1×10²¹ Accurate global weather estimation on the scale of approximately 2 weeks^[3]. Assuming Moore's law remains constant, such systems may be feasible around 2030.

A zettascale computer system could generate more single floating point data in one second than was stored by any digital means on Earth in first quarter 2011.

References

1. ^ Overclock3D - Sandra CPU
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ DeBenedictis, Erik P. (2005). "Reversible logic for supercomputing". Proceedings of the 2nd conference on Computing frontiers. pp. 391–402. ISBN 1595930191. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1062325.