Cell-based "Roadrunner" Tops Elusive Petaflop Mark

prunedude writes "The NY times is reporting that an American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L. To put the performance of the machine in perspective, Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day."

Comments

Ahh, analogies, so unhelpful

[lawaetf1]

Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day."
And if you tried to re-produce the energy present in a single tank of gas it would take you a year of back-breaking labor. Probably more like five years.
Which isn't to say that I don't think the machine is impressive. Were it only around a few years ago it might have calculated that the Iraq war wouldn't be a lil' "let freedom ring!" jaunt.

Does not compute...

[fahrbot-bot]

if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day.

Can I have that figure in something more useful, like Library of Congresses / Fortnight or an automotive analogy?