Personal Supercomputer

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What Does Personal Supercomputer Mean?

A personal supercomputer (PSC) is a collective hardware system with more capability than a common personal computer (PC).

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Personal supercomputers offer individual users, small businesses or other owners access to more processing power and computing capability than products in the standard desktop and laptop computer markets.

Techopedia Explains Personal Supercomputer

Many personal supercomputers are built by their owners. These efforts can involve networking various computer parts inside one shell. An example is the use of graphical processing units (GPU) for better video capability.

Users also can add multiple microprocessors or distributed processing technologies inside a computer shell to speed up or enhance computer operations and logic processing. Some organizations offer resources for those looking to build PSCs. For example, Nevada offers resources on how to build various supercomputer installations using a line of Tesla GPUs and other products.

In general, building a PSC displays a knowledge of computer hardware components beyond the level of a novice, which is why many advanced users opt to adopt this strategy.

Commercial variations of PSCs are available on the market but are not sold in large volumes because most users do not need more than what is available with a standard PC.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.