Top 500 Fastest Computers

epaulson writes "The Top500 list has been released for the first half of 1999. The number one machine remains ASCI Red. The biggest Linux machine is cplant at 129, and Avalon is number 160. The list is a ranking of results from the LINPACK benchmark, which is a Linear Algebra code, so things like distributed.net and SETI@home don't count. "

Comments

actual numbers for machines for mortals

[rillian]

I just went and got the 1000x1000 double precision benchmark from netlib.org. I grabbed the lapack library and g77 from the debian website (Debian 2.1/slink versions)

On my 400MHz K6-2, I get 16 Mflops without optimization, 20 with -O3. Not quite what was listed in the performance document, but that might have been with a hand-tuned library.

For comparison, my home machine (a 300 HHz K6-2) gets 13 Mflops unoptimized, 20 with. It's running Debian 2.2pre/potato which uses egcs, so the optimization is probably better. Both machines have 100 MHz fsb and 1 MB L2 cache.

There's a fun java version on the LINPACK benchmark as well. I get 1.4 Mflops. :)

A bit of statistical analysis

[Trepidity]

Okay, I was bored, so I went through and counted some stuff:

The numbers won't add up correctly because several of the machines were credited to two co-builders. Or I could have made a mistake.


Company: total, # out of the top 10, highest rank

(I tried to make this line up but apparently /. won't let me).

SGI: 182/500, 7/10, #2
IBM: 118/500, 1/10, #8
Sun: 95/100, 0/10, #54
H/P: 39/100, 0/10, #150
Fujitsu: 23/500, 0/10, #26
NEC: 18/500, 0/10, #29
Hitachi: 12/500, 1/10, #4
Compaq: 5/500, 0/10, #49
Intel: 4/500, 1/10, #1
Self-made: 3/500, 0/10, #129
SNI: 2/500, 0/10, #66
Tsukuba: 1/500, 0/10, #18
Siemens: 1/500, 0/10, #355


This ranking above looks very different than the ranking of the top five computers. For example, Intel, who is #1, is basically a non-factor in the supercomputer market, with a mere three other computers on the list. H/P and Sun, which don't even make the top 50, seem to have the mid-level supercomputer market locked up, with 134 computers between them. SGI, however, is still the undisputed leader, from the high end (7/10) to the mid and low ends of ths list.

Stats by Country

[Trepidity]

Okay, I was really bored, so I did more stats. This time by country.


USA: 292/500, 7/10, #1
Japan: 56/500, 1/10, #4
Germany: 47/500, 0/10, #15
UK: 29/500, 2/10, #7
France: 18/500, 0/10, #47
Canada: 8/500, 0/10, #29
Sweden: 7/500, 0/10, #71
Netherlands: 6/500, 0/10, #146
Switzerland: 6/500, 0/10, #339
Italy: 5/500, 0/10, #36
Australia: 5/500, 0/10, #102
Korea: 3/500, 0/10, #78
Denmark: 3/500, 0/10, #275
Belgium: 3/500, 0/10, #286
Spain: 3/500, 0/10, #314
Finland: 2/500, 0/10, #53
Norway: 2/500, 0/10, #193
Austria: 2/500, 0/10, #392
New Zealand: 1/500, 0/10, #64
Luxembourg: 1/500, 0/10, #247
Mexico: 1/500, 0/10, #436


Summary: United States 292 vs. Everybody Else 208.

In the top ten, it's United States 7 vs. Everybody Else 3.

If you compile the stats by the country in which the corporation that made the computer is based, American companies are responsible for over 400 of the top 500 supercomputers (just about everything except the Japanese stuff).