A new infographic comparing statistics which include smartphones, Allied forces, and the NASA space mission, provides an astonishing look at just how powerful computer performance is today.
The infographic published by Toughrack on Visual.ly defines computer performance as being characterised by the amount of useful work a computer system accomplishes compared to the time and resources used to make it work.
Performance metrics include bandwidth, throughput, latency, response time, service time, completion time, and compression ratio, among other factors, according to the infographic.
The performances of the iPhone 4 and the Sony PlayStation are the subjects of a couple of points on the infographic, which states the smartphone has more computer power than all of US space agency NASA did in 1969; and the gaming console – at a cost of stg£300 – has the power of a military supercomputer of 1997.
In addition to comparing computer performance now to the past, the infographic also looks ahead to computers and supercomputers of tomorrow.
For example, within the next decade, there will be supercomputers operating at least a petaflop speed – that’s a quadrillion floating-point calculations per second.
