IBM Ships Fastest CPU on Earth

HockeyPuck writes "The 5-billion-instructions-per second Power6 processor from IBM would beat such rivals as the 3.73 gigahertz Pentium Extreme and the 2.4 gigahertz UltraSparc T2 from Sun. 'It's hard to make the average person understand just how fast this is,' said IBM Chief Technology Officer Bernard Meyerson, offering an example meant to explain his company's baby that still leaves the listener awed with the speediness of the two laggards. 'Hold your index finger out in front of your face,' Meyerson said in a telephone interview from IBM headquarters in New York. 'In less time than it would take a beam of light to travel from your knuckle to your fingertip, the new IBM chip would complete one task and start looking for the next, he said.'"

Worst analogy EVAR!

[morgan_greywolf]

What's a 'task'? If you think of a 'task' for a CPU to be an instruction, then any modern desktop or notebook CPU currently in production would meet Myerson's description:

In less time than it would take a beam of light to travel from your knuckle to your fingertip, the new IBM chip would complete one task and start looking for the next, he said

C'mon. That's horrible. Where's BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?

Units of measurement

[muellerr1]

I'm glad they stopped measuring chip speed in Hertz and are now using the simpler metric fingertip-to-knuckle units.

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[ukatoton]

Is it not obvious? Myerson is BadAnalogyGuy!

Tried running Vista SP1 on that monster...

[jkrise]

and all the water turned into steam!

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can let one riiiiiiiiiiiiiip faster than this.

National Lampoon Radio Hour

[sm62704]

'It's hard to make the average person understand just how fast this is,' said IBM Chief Technology Officer Bernard Meyerson, offering an example meant to explain his company's baby that still leaves the listener awed with the speediness of the two laggards.

Made me think of a National Lampoon Radio Hour (SNL before it was on TV) skit about the George Foreman-Muhammed Ali fight. Foreman (John Belushi IIRC) talking about Ali:

"He so fast he can turn off the light and be in bed before the room get dark!"

Re:Sour grapes or a real arguement

[Timesprout]

IBM just hired some peeps from the Intel marketing division.

And in 25 year's time...

[Gordonjcp]

... it will be in a washing machine controller.

Better analogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better analogy; He should've said;

'Hold your index finger out in front of your face,' Meyerson said in a telephone interview from IBM headquarters in New York. 'Ha Haw! Now you look like a retard!

Re:Units of measurement

[n3tcat]

Well, it makes it much easier to explain why multicore processors work faster. Though I expect problems when explaining more than 5 cores per chip...

Re:And in 25 year's time...

[Timesprout]

Running Vista with SP 236, the one with extra spin.

Re:It's a ploy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly.

Apple doesn't care about marketing, they are only interested in making quality product.

Re:Units of measurement

[plover]

I thought this meant they were switching from bogomips to bogogips.

But then I suppose some math genius is going to come along and claim we should be counting bogipigips because bogogips is just a marketing term.

Re:And in 25 year's time...

[martin_henry]

...and Aero will allow your suds to look transparent!

Re:Units of measurement

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I calculate a "fingertip-to-knuckle unit" to be 3.174 * 10^-4 football fields.

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

He should have said "it's so fast it'll do an infinite loop in half a second".

Multicore speed explained.

[HellProphet]

For multi-core do you have to hold as many fingers up as there are cores to understand the speed over multiple cores?

Re:Units of measurement

[TheGratefulNet]

you can measure in groups of 5 finger-knuckle units at a time. after that, you have to, well, bank-swap. sort of.

its not all its cracked up to be.

Re:Units of measurement

[hallucinogen]

How many fingertip-to-knuckle units does the library of congress hold?

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

So a priest, a rabbi, and a fork bomb walk into a bar...

Re:It's a ploy

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Apple no longer uses IBM processors, this would've been a great marketing scheme for Steve Jobs.

Exactly.

Imagine, you could compute at an insanely great speed while frying eggs on your Powerbook!

Re:Units of measurement

[Enry]

By then the speeds will be fast enough that you can use toes as a measuring stick.

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

So a priest, a rabbi, and a fork bomb walk into a bar...

...and the bartender says "what is this? some kind of joke?".

Re:YES!

[cbart387]

I'm sure glad that joke isn't wearing thin!

Obligatory fortnight

[davidwr]

How many Libraries of Congress can it index per fortnight?

Re:Units of measurement

[Gazzonyx]

American or British football fields, man?! Be precise or we'll have another mibibyte(MiB) situation on our hands, for craps sake!

Guy shoulda explained it like in the Italian Job

[srussia]

Lyle: I'm gonna get a NAD T-770 digital decoder with a seventy-watt amp and and Burr Brown D.A.C.'s.

Hansome Rob: [at a loss] Yeah...

Lyle: It's a big stereo. Speakers so loud, they blow women's clothes off.

Handsome Rob: Now you're talking!

Re:Units of measurement

[BJH]

No, no no. You've got your units all mixed up.

The correct question to ask there would be:

"How many Libraries of Congress can I process in a fortnight with one hand?"

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[ScriptedReplay]

I think it's a neat calculation. We've all lost track of what fast actually means for a modern CPU.

Yeah, it's a fast CPU. And it gets faster if you have smaller hands. Or if you watch your hands move by at close to the speed of light. Way cool.

Should sell like crazy in Japan.

Wasn't it Dennis Hopper that said,

[Anonymous Coward]

A pico-second is how long it takes a slashdotter to think of something stupid?

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[GungaDan]

"there probably isn't much difference between a knuckle and a wrist"

Goatse Guy? Is that you?

Re:Meaningless Indicator of Processing Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm working on a much faster multi-core cheap based on a new concept of extreme simplify all code using SISC instructions (aka Single Instruction Set Computer) and I'm reaching several tens of billion NOP's per core.

When I power off the system it can sustain the proposed performance for a period of eternity seconds - best instructions per watt ratio ever found.

PS: Still trying to design an operating system for this architecture that can produce end results different than Windows on x86.

Re:Power6 architecture: it's different

[aproposofwhat]

Yes, although Gentoo will still take a week to compile ;P

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[joaommp]

only Chuck Norris can reach the end of infinite loops. And he can do it twice.

And then he roundhouse kicks you into oblivion.

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Touvan]

AFAIK, only Chuck Norris is capable of doing an infinite loop that fast.

Re:Units of measurement

[TeknoHog]

But then I suppose some math genius is going to come along and claim we should be counting bogipigips because bogogips is just a marketing term.

Yeah, when bogopigs fly.

Re:Units of measurement

[Curien]

"How many Libraries of Congress can I process in a fortnight with one hand?"

The LoC has pr0n?

Re:Units of measurement

[TeknoHog]

American or British football fields, man?!

Huh.. I don't know that! Aaarrggh! *falls into the chasm*

I'm holding a finger in front of my face...

[slyborg]

...but it's not my index finger....

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[backwardMechanic]

So, if I throw my computer out of the window, I'll get more FLOPS?

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dalai Lama is fascinated by the analogy:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/10/world/10lama-600.jpg [nytimes.com]

This fast...

[AttillaTheNun]

'Hold your index finger out in front of your face,'

and I thought he was going to finish that with "and it goes THIS fast!!!", as he waves his finger across his face as fast as he can.

That's how my brother and I used to measure seconds when we were 5 years old. Accurate to within 500% (your mileage may vary).

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[daveime]

I think the processor speed in a ZX81 was defined in arse-to-elbows per hour ;-)

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Dr Caleb]

"So, if I throw my computer out of the window, I'll get more FLOPS?"

That's the jist of the meaning behind 'Vista Capable'. If you want it to go faster, throw it harder.

What about BogoMIPS? Huh? Huh?

[Pharmboy]

But how many BogoMIPS is that? After all, that is most computers do, most of the time.

Think about it: This new chip can do nothing up to 2 to 3 times faster than any other chip on the market! We are talking about incredible productivity gains during idle times!

(why yes, I do work in marketing...)

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[backwardMechanic]

Fair point. So I should jump out of the window and my computer will run faster? I'm just looking fora few more cycles...

What he should have said ...

[j-min]

... was if the processor were an acid, and you were to put on a pair of goggles, the goggles would do nothing.

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Have Blue]

And then the fork bomb walks into the bar, and then the fork bomb walks into the bar, and then the fork bomb walks into the bar...

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[flargleblarg]

> Yeah, it's a fast CPU.

You've never heard of the Power6? It's the chip that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. She's fast enough for you, old man.

> And it gets faster if you have smaller hands. Or if you watch your hands move by at close to the speed of light.

She'll make point five past light speed.

Re:Units of measurement

[spazdor]

And then once again India will end up doing it cheaper and faster than us. [ernestrossi.com]

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

I must confess, I have no practical appreciation for how long it takes light to travel from my head to my toe. Wouldn't it be better to compare the speed to another CPU rather than some esoteric property like light speed.

Heck, it would be just as meaningful to have said, "It's so fast that the space-time continuum is warped by 30 nanometers when it starts up MS Office."

Re:Worst analogy EVAR!

[cababunga]

So, if I throw my computer out of the window, I'll get more FLOPS?

No, you won't. But you may get better performance if you throw all the windows out of your computer.

Re:Units of measurement

[darkpixel2k]

By then the speeds will be fast enough that you can use toes as a measuring stick.

...and even later, my penis size.