What can a super computer do that a normal computer can't?

In the early days, supercomputers were fast because they processed vectors: single instruction, multiple data. The Cray 1 had sixty-four 64-bit vector registers. With compilers that could optimize for vector processing, supercomputers could do in minutes what might take conventional computers weeks. read more

A super computer is only super relative to mass produced computers at the time. For example, a Cray 1 super computer from 1984 could perform at 0.8 GFLOPS whereas a single core on the latest Intel processor can achieve 25 GFLOPS. read more