Thank you Spark. I used the Top500 data for supercomputers. It is similar (but more recent) than the supercomputer data provided on the GridComputing stats page. My goal is to provide a rough comparison between the aggregate power of the distributed computing network and the most powerful supercomputer in the world, to convey the potential power of distributed computing to a non-technical audience. I used supercomputer data from TOP500 (www.top500.org with Nov. 2010 data set). Computing power refers to maximal LINPACK performance achieved....

Thank you, Spark, for your reply. I never did get an answer to my question, but decided not to pursue it because in my research I decided to just give a rough summary of computing power comparison between distributed computing and supercomputers, rather than use precise numbers. Thank you for the suggestion though.

Jay

Hello,

I am a PhD student writing a review of online citizen science projects. I want to include a comparison of the computing power of distributed computing vs the world's top supercomputers, but I have a question about how to do this comparison to make sure I'm making an accurate comparison.

The Gridrepublic Stats page (http://www.gridrepublic.org/index.php?page=stats) shows two estimates of distributed computing power. The first estimate appears in the top-right of the page as "Recent Avg" (currently listed as 9812.15 Tflops). The second estimate appears in the list of the world's top supercomputers, above the first supercomputer listed as "All projects available through GridRepublic, in aggregate: 10494403 Gflops". These estimates are similar but not equal and I want to know why.

I appreciate whatever help people can offer me. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Jay