This list compares various amounts of computing power in instructions per second organized by order of magnitude

Order of magnitude

An order of magnitude is the class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio to the class preceding it. In its most common usage, the amount being scaled is 10 and the scale is the exponent being applied to this amount...

.

10^-1

Slowest single sentient computation

• 5×10⁻¹ Speed of the average human mental calculation for multiplication using symbols circa 2000 B.C.

10⁰

Reality speed frame of computation

• 1 OP
  Operation
  Operation may refer to:* Scientific operation* Surgery, or operation* An operation in mathematics:**Unary operation**Binary operation**Arity...
  
  /S the speed of the average human addition calculation using symbols circa 2000 B.C.
• 1 OP/S the speed of Zuse Z1 first fully digital automated computer 1936
• 5 OP/S world record for human addition set

10¹

Faster than human mental reaction computation begins

• 2×10¹ Zuse Z3 1941
• 6×10¹ Upper end of serialized human perception computation (light bulbs in the US do not flicker to the human observer)

10²

Faster than animal perception computation begins

• 1.2×10² Estimated serial perception processing for a double dorsal brain.
• 2×10² Upper end of serialized human through put. This is roughly expressed by the lower limit of accurate event placement on small scales of time (The swing of a conductors arm, the reaction time to lights on a drag strip etc.)
• 2×10² IBM 602
  IBM 602
  The IBM 602 Calculating Punch , introduced in 1946, was an electromechanical calculator capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It was programmed using a plugboard control panel and was IBM's first machine that did division....
  
   1946 computer.

10³

Kilo scale computing

• 9.2×10⁴ Intel 4004
  Intel 4004
  The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
  
   First commercially available full function CPU on a chip 1971
• 5×10⁵ Colossus computer
  Colossus computer
  Not to be confused with the fictional computer of the same name in the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project.Colossus was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer. Colossus and its successors were used by British codebreakers to help read encrypted German messages during World War II...
  
   vacuum tube
  Vacuum tube
  In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
  
   supercomputer 1943

10⁶

Mega scale computing

• 1×10⁶ Motorola 68000
  Motorola 68000
  The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
  
   commercial computing 1979
• 1.2×10⁶ IBM 7030 "Stretch"
  IBM 7030
  The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. The first one was delivered to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1961....
  
   Vacuum tube supercomputer 1961

10⁹

Giga scale computing

• 1×10⁹ ILLIAC IV 1972 supercomputer does first computational fluid dynamics
  Computational fluid dynamics
  Computational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
  
   problems
• 1.354×10⁹ Intel Pentium III commercial computing 1999
• 147.6×10⁹ Intel Core-i7 980X Extreme Edition
  Gulftown (microprocessor)
  Gulftown or Westmere-EP is the codename of a six-core hyperthreaded Intel processor able to run up to 12 threads in parallel. It is based on Westmere microarchitecture, the 32 nm shrink of Nehalem. Originally rumored to be called the Intel Core i9, it is sold as an Intel Core i7...
  
   commercial computing 2010

10¹²

Tera scale computing

• 1.34×10¹² Intel ASCI Red 1997 Supercomputer
• 1.344×10¹² GeForce GTX 480
  GeForce 400 Series
  The GeForce 400 Series is the 11th generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units. The series was originally slated for production in November 2009, but, after a number of delays, launched on March 26, 2010 with availability following in April 2010....
  
   from NVIDIA
• 4.64×10¹² Radeon HD 5970 from ATI
• 5.152×10¹² S2050/S2070 1U GPU Computing System
  Nvidia Tesla
  The Tesla graphics processing unit is nVidia's third brand of GPUs. It is based on high-end GPUs from the G80 , as well as the Quadro lineup. Tesla is nVidia's first dedicated General Purpose GPU...
  
   from NVIDIA
• 100×10¹² Estimated parallelized throughput of the human brain

10¹⁵

Petascale

Petascale

In computing, petascale refers to a computer system capable of reaching performance in excess of one petaflop, i.e. one quadrillion floating point operations per second. The standard benchmark tool is LINPACK and Top500.org is the organisation which tracks the fastest supercomputers...

 computing

• 1.026×10¹⁵ IBM Roadrunner 2009 Supercomputer
• 4.3×10¹⁵ Fastest computer system as of 2009 Folding@home
  Folding@home
  Folding@home is a distributed computing project designed to use spare processing power on personal computers to perform simulations of disease-relevant protein folding and other molecular dynamics, and to improve on the methods of doing so...
  
   Cloud computing
  Cloud computing
  Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
  
  
• 20×10¹⁵ IBM Sequoia
  IBM Sequoia
  Sequoia is a petascale Blue Gene/Q supercomputer being constructed by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration as part of the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program...
  
   Circa 2011

10¹⁸

Exascale computing

Exascale computing

Exascale computing is a 21st-century attempt to move computing capabilities beyond the existing petascale. If achieved, it would represent a thousandfold increase over that scale...

• 1×10¹⁸ It is estimated that the need for exascale computing will become pressing around 2018

10²¹

Zetta scale computing

• 1×10²¹ Accurate global weather estimation on the scale of approximately 2 weeks. Assuming Moore's law
  Moore's Law
  Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years....
  
  remains constant, such systems may be feasible around 2030.

A zettascale computer system could generate more single floating point data in one second than was stored by any digital means on Earth in first quarter 2011.