# Is it possible to compare a present day PC to a "supercomputer" from years back?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-compare-a-present-day-pc-to-a-supercomputer-from-years-back/186794>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 7, 2003, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-compare-a-present-day-pc-to-a-supercomputer-from-years-back/186794 "2003-07-07T16:17:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-compare-a-present-day-pc-to-a-supercomputer-from-years-back/186794/1 "2003-07-07T16:17:28Z")

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If so, how far back do we have to go to say we have roughly to power of a Cray sitting on our desk now?

Lets say someone has a relatively high-end modern PC, for example, a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz or 3Ghz with a boatload of RAM, say 1GB. Would a Cray of say, circa 1990 be more powerful than that?

Forgive me if I can’t be more specific for labeling a particular supercomputer, I’m not very familiar with them but I was curious if a person could “ballpark” how far we’ve come with desktop power.

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**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-compare-a-present-day-pc-to-a-supercomputer-from-years-back/186794/2 "2003-07-07T16:39:22Z")

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[Are today’s PCs more powerful than the legendary supercomputers of the 1970s?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030704.html)

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**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-compare-a-present-day-pc-to-a-supercomputer-from-years-back/186794/3 "2003-07-07T16:51:15Z")

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Thanks for the link. While a recent article, ( **very recent!** ) the computer it is quoting is “relatively” old now… but it does give an idea.