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$1,000 PCs reach one teraflop

Reference judgmentCorrectDisputedResearch snapshot · October 15, 2026
Source confidence & research status
i
Editorial paraphrase · evidence v0.3. AI-assisted editorial assessments; original book editions not independently collated. Attribution and outcome confidence are recorded separately.

Source state: AUTHOR RETROSPECTIVE CHECKED.

Attribution confidence
MEDIUM
Outcome confidence · deadline / review
MEDIUM / MEDIUM
Timing confidence / kind
MEDIUM · DOCUMENTED BY
Population
Technology markets and relevant users; no universality unless the forecast expressly requires it.

Our reading of the claim

Reference (stated reasonable reading)

Correct

Criterion: A roughly $1,000 PC can supply about 10^12 peak single-precision operations per second, counting its graphics processor.

Deadline: 2009 · Included in this comparison

At original deadlineFULFILLED
By review dateFULFILLED

AMD’s 2008 $199–$299 GPU generation supplied about 1–1.2 TFLOPS; the remaining budget could accommodate an ordinary host PC. This is a reasonable numerical hardware hit. It is not a claim that every program sustains a teraflop or that GPU and CPU work are interchangeable.

Deadline and follow-up notes

At deadline: AMD’s 2008 $199–$299 GPU generation supplied about 1–1.2 TFLOPS; the remaining budget could accommodate an ordinary host PC.

By review: This is a reasonable numerical hardware hit. It is not a claim that every program sustains a teraflop or that GPU and CPU work are interchangeable.

Evidence: N54 (opens in a new tab)N09 (opens in a new tab)

View this reading in the scorecard →
01

The forecast and its attribution.

EDITORIAL PARAPHRASE

$1,000 PCs reach one teraflop

How My Predictions Are Faring — Ray Kurzweil

1999 · Attribution / year unconfirmed
P01 printed p.29, Computers #21; P02 opening 2009 paragraph

AUTHOR RETROSPECTIVE REPRINT

Source publication: 2010-10 · Access: text checked

Official author archive. Cover says October 2010, but the available file contains later updates. Reprinted forecast passages are used for attribution; the author’s favorable self-grades are not independent outcome evidence. Original book editions were not inspected. Page locators below are PRINTED pages, not PDF viewer indices.

Catalogue entry P01
Open listed source (opens in a new tab)
Normalized claim
$1,000 PCs reach one teraflop
Success criteria
A roughly $1,000 PC can supply about 10^12 peak single-precision operations per second, counting its graphics processor.
Claim type
Capability
02

Timeline

PREDICTION MADE1999Attributed forecast year; original edition not collated
ORIGINAL TARGET2009Deadline supplied by this assessment
FULL REALIZATIONBy 2009Evidence bound, not first achievement year

DOCUMENTED BY: Documented by 2009

End of named target year.

Outcome at original deadlineFULFILLED
Outcome at reviewFULFILLED

Supplied target wording: 2009. The original deadline is preserved if a later forecast revises it. Forecast horizon: not established. Drift is a calendar-year difference, not a precise elapsed duration.

03

The evidence.

CONTEXT · 2008-06-26

AMD: 2008 teraFLOPS graphics launch, issuer release reproduced (opens in a new tab)

Italian reproduction of AMD June 25 release: HD 4850/4870 availability, FP32 peak and $199/$299 suggested prices. An editor-inferred sub-$1000 PC budget is not a measured whole-system benchmark.. Italian reproduction of AMD June 25 release: HD 4850/4870 availability, FP32 peak and $199/$299 suggested prices. An editor-inferred sub-$1000 PC budget is not a measured whole-system benchmark.

Source checked as of 2026-10-15
ISSUER RELEASE SYNDICATED

Source publication: 2008-06-26 · Access: web text or indexed extract checked

Italian reproduction of AMD June 25 release: HD 4850/4870 availability, FP32 peak and $199/$299 suggested prices. An editor-inferred sub-$1000 PC budget is not a measured whole-system benchmark.

Catalogue entry N54
CONTEXT · 2020-09-01

NVIDIA: RTX 30-series launch specifications and pricing (opens in a new tab)

RTX 3080 launch price $699 and roughly 30 FP32 shader TFLOPS. Tensor, ray-tracing and shader operations are not interchangeable.. RTX 3080 launch price $699 and roughly 30 FP32 shader TFLOPS. Tensor, ray-tracing and shader operations are not interchangeable.

Source checked as of 2026-10-15
PRIMARY RESEARCH OR OFFICIAL

Source publication: 2020-09-01 · Access: web text or indexed extract checked

RTX 3080 launch price $699 and roughly 30 FP32 shader TFLOPS. Tensor, ray-tracing and shader operations are not interchangeable.

Catalogue entry N09

Capability, adoption, and timing

A related breakthrough is not automatically fulfillment. Review must check the actual capability, how widely it was required to be used, the specified technology, and the original deadline. A prototype cannot establish a claim about routine or widespread use.

i
Alternative interpretation: Sub-$1,000 system feasibility is an explicit cost-budget inference, not a retrieved exact 2008 shopping receipt. Current benchmark reading has medium confidence; arithmetic precision is visible.
04

Research notes & history

Sub-$1,000 system feasibility is an explicit cost-budget inference, not a retrieved exact 2008 shopping receipt. Current benchmark reading has medium confidence; arithmetic precision is visible.

Open questions

  • Original-edition collation remains an attribution task; it does not erase the stated outcome assessment.
  • An earlier documented instance could refine timing; the documented-by date is not claimed to be the invention year.
Imported from
kurzweil_verification_v0_3_package/predictions.canonical.v0.3.json
Legacy identifier
None
Forecast family
K052
Parent statement
Not assigned
File checksum
93ae54d9ea2f1bd1817c481b85e2b707812bcd934c74d0f1715fa098d9b5f51b
Inspect preserved source fields
release_record
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Review history

— Evidence v0.3: EDITORIAL_ASSESSMENT_COMPLETE; supplied verdict CORRECT. AMD’s 2008 $199–$299 GPU generation supplied about 1–1.2 TFLOPS; the remaining budget could accommodate an ordinary host PC. This is a reasonable numerical hardware hit. It is not a claim that every program sustains a teraflop or that GPU and CPU work are interchangeable.

Related forecasts.

No forecast family has been resolved for this record. Related statements and revised deadlines will be linked during research.