Big Mac (supercomputer) - Definition and Overview

This article or section should be merged with System X

The "Big Mac" or Terascale Cluster is a supercomputer assembled in 2003 by US university Virginia Tech under the supervision of Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan.

The "Big Mac" is a cluster of 1,100 dual-processor Apple Power Macintosh G5 computers. It is notable for its relatively low cost of just over 5 million dollars and high performance (10.3 teraflops) as well as its short build time of about six months. The Terascale Cluster has a good price-performance ratio. It falls only behind Japan's Earth Simulator (35.8 teraflops) and the ASCI Q supercomputer (13.9 teraflops) in raw power.

Srinidhi Varadarajan believes that further tuning could boost performance by another 10 percent.

See also

• Beowulf (computing)

External links

• Jack Dongarra's TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers (http://www.top500.org/)
• Mac cluster rises in supercomputing ranks (http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,39001153,39156542,00.htm)
• Mac Supercomputer Joins Elite (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61252,00.html)

Example Usage of (supercomputer)