Several weeks ago I was reading an interesting article about the history of supercomputers in general and the Cray-1 specifically. The Cray-1 is often credited as the first truly successful supercomputer, as such when many people think of the history of supercomputers they often think of the Cray-1. The article went on to say that the Cray-1, which was released in 1976, was about as powerful as a 386 desktop computer.
This kind of got me thinking - this computer I'm typing at right now, at what year were supercomputers at this level? Was it the late 80s, the 90s, 2000s? How fast are the two different fields progressing and is one field advancing faster than the other? I found a site that listed both supercomputers and desktop computers performance numbers throughout the years which allowed me to answer all my questions.
This computer at my desk (dual core Pentium) is equivalent to a supercomputer from around 1994. What's more interesting is both computers and supercomputers appear to be advancing at the same rate. The magic number is somewhere around 15 years. It takes 15 years, give or take a few, for desktop computers to reach the level of supercomputers. If this holds true, that means around 2025 you'll be able to buy a desktop computer with the power of the Cray Jaguar, currently the worlds most powerful supercomputer.
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