By using computer chips designed for a video game console, the US Department of Energy has claimed a new record for the fastest computer in the world.
Built from 13,000 of the Cell processors first used in the PlayStation 3 console, teamed up with nearly 7,000 AMD processors designed for desktop computers, the 鈥溾�� can process information at speeds around twice as fast as the previous fastest computer.
RoadRunner recently managed to run 1000 trillion calculations per second, the US Department of Energy , compared to the 500 trillion per second of the best IBM supercomputer. BlueGene designs have dominated and topped the TOP500 rankings of the world鈥檚 fastest computers for years, but now look to have lost the top spot.
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A trillion calculations per second is known as a . RoadRunner, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US, has become the world鈥檚 first petaflop computer.
Superfast
A spokesperson for the lab said that RoadRunner鈥檚 daily output was equivalent to each of the 6 billion people on earth using a calculator to crunch numbers for 24 hours a day for 46 years.
鈥淩oadrunner will be used by the Department of Energy鈥檚 to perform calculations that vastly improve the ability to certify that the US nuclear weapons stockpile is reliable without conducting underground nuclear tests,鈥� the department said in a statement.
鈥淩oadrunner will also contribute to solving our global energy challenges, and open new windows of knowledge in the basic scientific research fields,鈥� it added.
