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Programs designed for the specific purpose of calculating π may have better performance than general-purpose mathematical software. They typically implement [[checkpointing]] and efficient [[disk swapping]] to facilitate extremely long-running and memory-expensive computations.
* '''PiFast''', by Xavier Gourdon was the fastest program for [[Microsoft Windows]] in 2003. According to its author, it can compute one million digits in 3.5 seconds on a 2.4 GHz [[Pentium 4]].<ref>http://numbers.computation.free.fr/Constants/PiProgram/timings.html</ref> PiFast can also compute other irrational numbers like ''[[e (mathematical constant)|e]]'' and [[square root of two|√2]]. It can also work at lesser efficiency with very little memory (down to a few tens of megabytes to compute well over a billion (10<sup>9</sup>) digits). This [[closed source]] [[freeware]] tool is a popular benchmark in the [[overclock]]ing community. PiFast 4.4 is available from [http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi
* '''QuickPi''' v4.5 Alpha 12 by Steve Pagliarulo for Windows is faster than PiFast for runs of under 400,000,000 digits. Version 4.5 is not publicly available, but v4.00a is available on Stu's Pi Page below. Like PiFast, QuickPi can also compute other irrational numbers like ''e'' √2 and √3. The software may be obtained from the author through the Pi-Hacks Yahoo! forum, or from [http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/pi.html Stu's Pi
==Most digits calculated on a home computer==
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