The Folding@Home network is currently running at over 1 exaFLOP of distributed computing performance. This is more than five times the theoretical peak compute/second of ORNL's Summit, the world's fastest supercomputer, and to properly quantify it for us PC gaming enthusiasts, it is the equivalent of more than 150,000 RTX 2060s strung together.

Folding@Home is an amorphous mass of interconnected PCs and server racks donated courtesy of public institutions and private companies; Folding@Home is based at the University of Washington, and many labs around the world are working on incredibly important and cutting-edge simulations. Currently, through a vast amount of simulations (pictured above), they are tasked with fighting diseases and viruses that are pandemic around the world, including the new coronavirus.

Anyone can join in, which makes it scalable to a super-sized scale: just download the Folding@Home client and donate the power of your PC to fight the new coronavirus, fight cancer, and fight Alzheimer's disease. Your PC alone is not enough, but our gaming PCs collectively can form the scale of a supercomputer

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Folding@Home currently equates to 312,500 AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X CPUs or 62,500 Nvidia Titan RTXs in single precision. Similarly, it is also approaching AMD's planned Frontier supercomputer for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which will run at 1.5 exaflops peak.

AMD recently announced that it is developing another supercomputer, El Capitan, which, when operational in 2023, will be the world's fastest, exceeding 2 exaflops in double precision computing. To achieve that tremendously mighty performance, a slightly more powerful gaming rig may be needed.

The distributed Folding@Home network has seen a surge in computing power in recent weeks, including support from PC gaming subreddits and brands. However, there is always room for one more. If you want to get involved and lend your gaming PC to this effort, you can do so alone or as part of a team.

To learn more about Folding@Home, how to get started folding, and how to participate in community activities, visit the PC Gamer forums. If we all work together, we can make a real difference.