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IBM Ships Fastest CPU on Earth

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the glixchip-of-tau-alpha-ceti-still-beats-it-in-lab-tests dept.

HockeyPuck writes "The 5-billion-instructions-per second Power6 processor from IBM would beat such rivals as the 3.73 gigahertz Pentium Extreme and the 2.4 gigahertz UltraSparc T2 from Sun. 'It's hard to make the average person understand just how fast this is,' said IBM Chief Technology Officer Bernard Meyerson, offering an example meant to explain his company's baby that still leaves the listener awed with the speediness of the two laggards. 'Hold your index finger out in front of your face,' Meyerson said in a telephone interview from IBM headquarters in New York. 'In less time than it would take a beam of light to travel from your knuckle to your fingertip, the new IBM chip would complete one task and start looking for the next, he said.'"

27 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Worst analogy EVAR! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny
    What's a 'task'? If you think of a 'task' for a CPU to be an instruction, then any modern desktop or notebook CPU currently in production would meet Myerson's description:

    In less time than it would take a beam of light to travel from your knuckle to your fingertip, the new IBM chip would complete one task and start looking for the next, he said
    C'mon. That's horrible. Where's BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?

    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by ukatoton · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is it not obvious? Myerson is BadAnalogyGuy!

    2. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

      He should have said "it's so fast it'll do an infinite loop in half a second".

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    3. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      So a priest, a rabbi, and a fork bomb walk into a bar...

    4. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by ScriptedReplay · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think it's a neat calculation. We've all lost track of what fast actually means for a modern CPU.


      Yeah, it's a fast CPU. And it gets faster if you have smaller hands. Or if you watch your hands move by at close to the speed of light. Way cool.

      Should sell like crazy in Japan.
    5. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by GungaDan · · Score: 5, Funny

      "there probably isn't much difference between a knuckle and a wrist"

      Goatse Guy? Is that you?

      --
      Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
    6. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by joaommp · · Score: 5, Funny

      only Chuck Norris can reach the end of infinite loops. And he can do it twice.

      And then he roundhouse kicks you into oblivion.

      --
      Onda Technology Institute
    7. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The Dalai Lama is fascinated by the analogy:

      http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/10/world/10lama-600.jpg

    8. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by backwardMechanic · · Score: 4, Funny

      Fair point. So I should jump out of the window and my computer will run faster? I'm just looking fora few more cycles...

    9. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by Have+Blue · · Score: 5, Funny

      And then the fork bomb walks into the bar, and then the fork bomb walks into the bar, and then the fork bomb walks into the bar...

    10. Re:Worst analogy EVAR! by cababunga · · Score: 5, Funny

      So, if I throw my computer out of the window, I'll get more FLOPS? No, you won't. But you may get better performance if you throw all the windows out of your computer.
  2. Units of measurement by muellerr1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm glad they stopped measuring chip speed in Hertz and are now using the simpler metric fingertip-to-knuckle units.

    --
    steampunk web design
    1. Re:Units of measurement by n3tcat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, it makes it much easier to explain why multicore processors work faster. Though I expect problems when explaining more than 5 cores per chip...

    2. Re:Units of measurement by plover · · Score: 5, Funny
      I thought this meant they were switching from bogomips to bogogips.

      But then I suppose some math genius is going to come along and claim we should be counting bogipigips because bogogips is just a marketing term.

      --
      John
    3. Re:Units of measurement by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

      I calculate a "fingertip-to-knuckle unit" to be 3.174 * 10^-4 football fields.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    4. Re:Units of measurement by Gazzonyx · · Score: 5, Funny

      American or British football fields, man?! Be precise or we'll have another mibibyte(MiB) situation on our hands, for craps sake!

      --

      If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.

    5. Re:Units of measurement by BJH · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, no no. You've got your units all mixed up.

      The correct question to ask there would be:

      "How many Libraries of Congress can I process in a fortnight with one hand?"

    6. Re:Units of measurement by TeknoHog · · Score: 5, Funny

      But then I suppose some math genius is going to come along and claim we should be counting bogipigips because bogogips is just a marketing term.

      Yeah, when bogopigs fly.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    7. Re:Units of measurement by Curien · · Score: 5, Funny

      "How many Libraries of Congress can I process in a fortnight with one hand?"

      The LoC has pr0n?

      --
      It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
    8. Re:Units of measurement by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      American or British football fields, man?!

      Huh.. I don't know that! Aaarrggh! *falls into the chasm*

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. Tried running Vista SP1 on that monster... by jkrise · · Score: 4, Funny

    and all the water turned into steam!

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  4. National Lampoon Radio Hour by sm62704 · · Score: 4, Funny

    'It's hard to make the average person understand just how fast this is,' said IBM Chief Technology Officer Bernard Meyerson, offering an example meant to explain his company's baby that still leaves the listener awed with the speediness of the two laggards.

    Made me think of a National Lampoon Radio Hour (SNL before it was on TV) skit about the George Foreman-Muhammed Ali fight. Foreman (John Belushi IIRC) talking about Ali:

    "He so fast he can turn off the light and be in bed before the room get dark!"

    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  5. And in 25 year's time... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... it will be in a washing machine controller.

  6. Better analogy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Better analogy; He should've said;

    'Hold your index finger out in front of your face,' Meyerson said in a telephone interview from IBM headquarters in New York. 'Ha Haw! Now you look like a retard!
  7. Re:It's a ploy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't be silly.

    Apple doesn't care about marketing, they are only interested in making quality product.

  8. Re:Power6 architecture: it's different by aproposofwhat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, although Gentoo will still take a week to compile ;P

    --
    One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  9. I'm holding a finger in front of my face... by slyborg · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but it's not my index finger....