What is a computer that can perform billions of calculations per second?

Answer 1

I would have to say yes, since many PCs on the market are rated at more than 1 gigahertz (giga is 10^9 which is a thousand million).

However, assuming "calculations" refers to arithmetic operations, it must be noted that many of these operations take many more than one machine cycle to complete. On the basis presented in the first part of the answer, the correct answer to the question is that a modern PC might be able to carry out thousands of millions of calculations per second, particularly if these operations are of a primitive nature (add, subtract, etc).

In real terms, the answer is probably No, because most calculations require a mix of operations, including more complex operations than addition or subtraction. In addition to the pure arithmetic operation, operands also need to be obtained (from memory) and results may need to be stored, etc.

In conclusion, most average PCs today will struggle to reach one thousand million useful arithmetic calculations per second, but will generally reach one thousand million operation per second.

Answer 2

A super computer such as IBM's super computer, the Blue Gene/P.

Answer 3

It must be executing to 10 billion operations per second,which means that its processor is running at 10 GHz.or it has multiple processors splitting the load between them.

Answer 4

Yes. The IBM Sequoisa can perform 16,320 trillion floating point operations per second. That's 16.32 petaflops. A billion operations is nothing by comparison.