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In your hand every day is a device that a thousand times outperforms the computer that drove Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, yet hardly one acknowledges it, let alone fully appreciate it.

So far I've only seen "a thousand times faster than", but as "outperform" already means "faster", I don't know where to put "a thousand times" in the sentence. I want to keep the word "outperform" because the "out" has a connotation of a positive excess. Maybe something like "outperforming a thousand times"?

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    No, it means it performs much better than something else. This could be due to a number of factors, not just speed. For example, accuracy, durability, energy efficiency, and so on. As a more straightforward phrase, you could write "a device that is a thousand times better than the computer..."
    – user3169
    Commented Apr 28, 2018 at 4:57
  • Is there any wrong for using "outperform" in this case?
    – Ooker
    Commented Apr 28, 2018 at 5:01
  • It is fine, as long as you understand what the performance differences are. BTW, you should cite the source of your example. "that a thousand times outperforms" phrasing (along with some of the grammar) seems a bit odd to me.
    – user3169
    Commented Apr 28, 2018 at 5:31
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    @Ooker I'm inclined to agree with you that "a thousand times outperform" is a clumsy turn of phrase. There's nothing semantically wrong with it, but a more common expression might be "a thousand times more powerful" or "capable of a thousand times the performance of" .
    – Andrew
    Commented Apr 28, 2018 at 6:15
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    @Ooker it's the same either way. If it's performing a thousand times better it's already outperforming. No need to repeat yourself.
    – Andrew
    Commented Apr 28, 2018 at 14:27

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You wrote:

In your hand every day is a device that a thousand times outperforms the computer that drove Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, yet hardly one acknowledges it, let alone fully appreciate it.

You can put the phrase in either of two places:

In your hand every day is a device that outperforms by a thousand times the computer that drove Apollo 11's landing on the Moon...

In your hand every day is a device that outperforms the computer that drove Apollo 11's landing on the Moon by a thousand times...

The former is stylistically clearer in that it does not separate the adverbial modifier from its verb, outperforms, and does not admit the confusion where the adverbial phrase might be thought to modify the verb drove.

For the sake of thoroughness, you could also put it here, but I would not advise that you do so:

In your hand every day is a device that by a thousand times outperforms the computer that drove Apollo 11's landing on the Moon...

A cataphoric adverbial modifier in the form of a prepositional phrase is somewhat more difficult to parse.

However, sometimes you have no other clearly better place to put it:

... and with her eyes shut struck the suspended papier-mache donkey, causing the goodies inside to spill out onto the ground.

... and struck the suspended papier-mache donkey with her eyes shut, causing the goodies inside to spill out onto the ground.

.. and struck with her eyes shut the suspended papier-mache donkey, causing the goodies inside to spill out onto the ground.

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