I may have blogged about something similar a few weeks ago, but I like the comparison in the first paragraphs.

“

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Intel
Corp. has designed a computer chip that promises to do as many
calculations as quickly as an entire data center – while consuming as
much energy as a light bulb.

The world’s biggest chipmaker said Sunday it developed a
programmable processor that can perform about a trillion calculations
per second, or deliver a performance of 1.01 Teraflops. It accomplishes
this feat while consuming 62 watts of power when the chip is running at
a frequency of 3.16 gigahertz.

A similarly powerful supercomputer in 1996 at Sandia National
Laboratories took up more than 2,000 square feet, used nearly 10,000
Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of
electricity.

Intel’s latest chip is still in the research phase, but it marks an
important breakthrough for an industry obsessed with obtaining the
highest amount of performance for the lowest energy consumption in its
chips.”

When you look at things that way, it really goes to show what 11 years of technological research can do.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/
states/california/northern_california/16677437.htm