COMPUTING POWER

Computer performance can also be measured in?floating-point operations per second, or?flops. Current desktop computers have processors that can handle billions of floating-point operations per second, or gigaflops. Computers with multiple processors have an advantage over single-processor machines, because each processor core can handle a certain number of calculations per second. Multiple-core processors increase computing power while using less electricity

Even fast computers can take years to complete certain tasks. Finding two prime factors of a very large number is a difficult task for most computers. First, the computer must determine the factors of the large number. Then, the computer must determine if the factors are prime numbers. For incredibly large numbers, this is a laborious task. The calculations can take a computer many years to complete.

Future computers may find such a task relatively simple. A working quantum computer of sufficient power could calculate factors in parallel and then provide the most likely answer in just a few moments. Computing power is a measure of computing resources available to perform specific tasks. It can be quantified in terms of the computing speed and capacity of individual devices, such as processors and memory units, or in terms of the collective computing resources of an entire system, such as a data centre. The computing power of a system is often determined by the resources that are available to its users.

The computing power of a device is the maximum amount of resources that it can use to do multiple tasks. It is measured in operations per second (ops). The higher the ops, the more powerful the device. It is important because it determines how fast a device can perform tasks. For example, a high-powered computer can render a 3D image much faster than a low-powered computer.