Calculations per second per $1K

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Also see memory calculator.

This calculator estimates number of calculations per second that will be available in any particular year. This calculation uses a formula developed by Ray Kurzweil. The formula is: 10^(6.00*((20.40/6.00)^((year-1900)/100))-11.00)).

Modify the years below, and the CPS will change (JavaScript required):

  Start Year End Year  
   
CPS/$1K     Ratio:
 
Human capacity
(10 Peta CPS)/$1K
     
Human capacity
(10 Peta CPS)/$1M
     
Human capacity
high estimate
(1 Exa CPS)/$1M
     

Javascript not enabled or script had an error.

2007: Note that this formula already produces an underestimate for 2007. Two Nvidia G80 chips or two Cell chips produce 400-500 GFLOPS for $1K, about three times more than the formula predicts. Of course, the definitions of GFLOPS and CPS are debatable, but should be within a order of magnitude of each-other.

2014-03: Two Radeon HD 7970 provide 8200 GFLOPS for $900. This is 1.8x less than what the formula predicts. 500 Watt are consumed. Bandwidth is about 600 GB/s.

2018-05: Google TPUv2 provides about 65 TFLOPS for perhaps $6.5/hour. TPUv3 is 4x faster. Human equivalent can be rented at $1000/hr (40 TPUv3 chips).

Created by: Miron Cuperman, 2007