But duh! 1985 was a helluva long time ago, it’s sorta expected that we’d be moving at that pace. But what is really amazing is that we’ve shrunk the power of a supercomputer that was, according to the New York Times, “about the size of a large washing machine” and “cooled by immersion in a liquid called Flourinert that had been developed by 3M, and that was occasionally used as a human blood substitute during surgery” into something no bigger than a paper pad.
And they’ve only benchmarked one core of the iPad 2, when they test both, they expect the iPad 2 to rival the supercomputers through 1994. [NY Times Bits]
Image credit: Cray Supercomputers
Ben Evans
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 2:56 PMHi, are you pleased to see me or this that a super computer from between 1985 and 1994 in your pocket?
Stefan
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 3:11 PMonly an iPad 2 could possibly be that fast, not a 6 Core i7 machine, nup no way.
Your Mate Alex
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 4:05 PMIt quantifies to some degree the amazing progress that has been achieved of the past couple of decades. A cheap, battery operated casual computing toy that has the grunt of an iconic computer once the fastest on the planet. I think you are one of the few that this article will be lost on.
Mark
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 6:01 PMThe implication is that the ONLY reason why this is deemed worthy of publishing is that it contains mention of an Apple product… If they are basing that on just one core, you’ll probably find most 1GHz ARM processors are equally qualified for similar attention. The fact that it mentions a particular brand only goes to commercial bias.
Unlike the iPad, I’ll bet that supercomputer wasn’t used for such trivial BS as playing Angry Birds. I’ll also bet you that if they fired that old beast up they can make it run Flash content in a browser..
Steve
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 11:46 PMThe iPad 2 isn’t the most powerful portable gadget with the beefiest processor. It’s some arbitrary bullshit to link even the most tenuous human interest story back to Apple.
Any modern dual-core smartphone chip can make this claim. No, I agree with him, drop ‘iPad 2′ into an article headline = page hits = ding ding ding.
btg
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 3:08 PM+1
AnthonyP
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 3:29 PMWhy not state when the hunble x86 bet the Cray?
Ryan Nielsen
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 3:41 PMOf course not silly! I havent seen a tablet the size of the Ipad walking around with a 6 Core i7 either! But if you do let me know! However the dual core phones would give it a run for its money as well!
James
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 8:59 PMHow bout a Quad Core i5? Cause, fancifully enough, they do exist, this was written on one.
Possibly not quite as thin as the iPad, but still a tablet.
Sam Testa
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 6:35 PMIs the guy in the photo holiday a blue file that says ‘Facebook’?
TIME TRAVELER!
matt
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 10:36 PMyeah… now compare the uses of both devices…
some how I think you fill find the functions of the Cray somewhat more inspirational…
Adam
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 12:18 AMWhy is everyone hating on the iPad 2 being specifically mentioned?
The iPad 2 is what they are testing, and it contains a custom processor that is only found in the iPad 2.
Geez, news can only report on what is actually happening..
Steve
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 3:06 PMAsk yourself WHY they specifically used an iPad 2. They did it precisely so gadget blogs like this and other news aggregators will drop the A-word and rack up hits and bring them more exposure for no other reason than people tune into this shit.