What do you define as a SuperComputer?

[Shadow Gamer]

What and How would you call a supercomputer? 

Would it be based on cores? CPU Speed? The GPU? The tasks it performs? Non-Consumer parts?

[Izaya Orihara]

Non-Consumer parts. 

[Askew]

Non-Consumer parts. 

 

Server grade parts are non consumer but not necessarily supercomputer either.

[PathfinderNC]

One of these:

[Askew]

I would say it has to be based on it's computational power statistics.

[Izaya Orihara]

Server grade parts are non consumer but not necessarily supercomputer either.

Not exactly what I meant. I meant the ultimate shit. The stuff that NSA uses to spy on us. 

[AMICLG]

How many FLOPS it can do, ie: after a certain point it's a supercomputer.

[DoubleY]

It's performance. Some say storage might constitute a Super Computer (i.e. 1PB of storage)

[Guest Kloaked]

A computer that can make calculations in nanoseconds.

 

The processing power is measured in petaflops, which is obviously the power in an Xbox One or PS4.

[GloriousPain]

A quantum nuclear computer.

[Guest]

A computer that can make calculations in nanoseconds.

 

The processing power is measured in petaflops, which is obviously the power in an Xbox One or PS4.

Regulars computers can do that. The first line of Wikipedia is perhaps not the best definition and that's why actually coming up with definitions takes a bit of time and effort.

 

To meet the standards of "supercomputer", a definition probably needs to include certain elements. For one, there may be no minimum speed for a supercomputer, because old supercomputers which are slow by today's standards were still and perhaps are still supercomputers, despite the fact that they're slow. I think supercomputers are simply industrial grade computers engineered specifically to process data or calculations at rates which are particularly quick for the time they were built in. The intention is to make the machine cost-efficient both financially and in terms of its speed, so the engineering process aims to optimize the supercomputer by lowering the overall cost per unit of processing by cutting in the non-essentials to some extent.

 

I may very well be forgetting some things, and perhaps some of the parts of my definition may be too specific, but it's a good start.

[Guest Kloaked]

Regulars computers can do that. The first line of Wikipedia is perhaps not the best definition and that's why actually coming up with definitions takes a bit of time and effort.

 

To meet the standards of "supercomputer", a definition probably needs to include certain elements. For one, there may be no minimum speed for a supercomputer, because old supercomputers which are slow by today's standards were still and perhaps are still supercomputers, despite the fact that they're slow. I think supercomputers are simply industrial grade computers engineered specifically to process data or calculations at rates which are particularly quick for the time they were built in. The intention is to make the machine cost-efficient both financially and in terms of its speed, so the engineering process aims to optimize the supercomputer by lowering the overall cost per unit of processing by cutting in the non-essentials to some extent.

 

I may very well be forgetting some things, and perhaps some of the parts of my definition may be too specific, but it's a good start.

 

It was from my school textbook which seldom recognizes any modern technology, but it's there. Pardon me, I didn't want to put a wall of text describing exactly what a supercomputer was. I don't even think there's an absolute definition, but supercomputers are generally very large in scale, physically. It still has more to do with how quick the computer is able to make calculations and how many, and what it can be used for.

 

The older supercomputers were the fastest calculating PC's in their times, but by today's standards, even a smartphone could perform as well as, or better than (at least one that I know of) older supercomputers since they processed only about 200 megaflops.

 

Nvidia's CEO has been trying to pass off the Tegra K1 kit as a computer computer, and lets be honest, a small board with a Tegra K1 chip is not a computer computer by today's standards. If that was the case, then my PC is a supercomputer - but it's not because it's not made for calculating a metric-shit-ton of data (like the Titan supercomputer) in a very short time-frame, and it's not made for scientific applications (physics, nuclear, etc). 

 

Even so, there's still more to it.

[WinNut]

An Intel Xeon E7 Ivy Bridge-EX with 512GB of RAM and 10 Titan Z's working on computing stuff with CUDA.

[I am the uber mage]

Well it depends on what you mean do you mean Super or Quantum because a standard PC would be like a car on the hight way. Super would be as fast as a speeding built but quantum would as fast as the speed of light if you were is measuring them in mph.

[marioo1182]

I would define it as quantum computing.

[Stadiz]

....an Apple PC   i kid i kid 

[Almercenary]

A computer that has superman some where on it. Hence why my PC is a super computer.

 

 

Probably when you start getting into PC's that cost hundreds of thousands, or even millions to build.

[Cryptonite]

A quantum nuclear computer.

you mean a quantum computer, those are super computers in certain aspects I agree, they are super fast, however in other tasks they will be slower than your average i5. I've seen quite a few documentaries on quantum computing over the course of the past year.

[GloriousPain]

you mean a quantum computer, those are super computers in certain aspects I agree, they are super fast, however in other tasks they will be slower than your average i5. I've seen quite a few documentaries on quantum computing over the course of the past year.

here where I am there called quantum nuclear but yes same thing... Things I've seen say at the slowest there between an i7 3770k and i7 4930k at the lowest at the best 2^8 times better

[Cryptonite]

here where I am there called quantum nuclear but yes same thing... Things I've seen say at the slowest there between an i7 3770k and i7 4930k at the lowest at the best 2^8 times better

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

no idea why you guys add nuclear to it. but interesting, I guess the nuclear spin got people calling it a nuclear computer.

[GloriousPain]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

no idea why you guys add nuclear to it. but interesting, I guess the nuclear spin got people calling it a nuclear computer.

Quantum nuclear computer? last I knew I never dropped the word Quantum... and unless I'm completely missing something is the link just for the name?

[Cryptonite]

Quantum nuclear computer? last I knew I never dropped the word Quantum... and unless I'm completely missing something is the link just for the name?

the link is just for the name yeah, and yeah, I didn't mean to drop the word quantum on the previous comment, I just forgot to add it.

[GloriousPain]

the link is just for the name yeah, and yeah, I didn't mean to drop the word quantum on the previous comment, I just forgot to add it.

okay I was kinda confused, it is 4  am