TOP500 List Highlights - November 1998

All changes are from June 98 to Nov 98:

Highlights from the Top 10:

• No Japanese machines in the TOP10
• 4 DOE ASCI machines 1 Intel (Sandia), 2 IBM (Livermore), 1 SGI (Los Alamos) represent 10% of the total Flop/s on the list
• About 0.5 Tflop/s is the entry point for the Top 10
• 2 machines are in England, both SGI T3E systems - all others are in the US
• Classified US Government centers and the 3 ASCI sites are the largest 'centers' worldwide using together almost 25% of the total performance.

General highlights from the Top 500:

• 162 new machines on list in the last 6 month, continues the trend of around half the machines are replaced every twelve months.
• #1 machine still Intel ASCI Red 1.3 Tflop/s
• #1 machine = sum of all 500 machines on the list in 1993 the TOP00 started
• #500 machine is located at Merril Lynch
• Entry level is now 17.1 GF/s
• About 2 orders of magnitude separates the machine at the top and at the bottom
• Today's top of the line PC is roughly the power of the machine at position 500 in 1993.

Trends over time:

• MPP's continue to increase (from 312 machines to 327 machines)
• PVP's continue to decrease (from 69 machines to 38 machines)
• 16 processor SGI/CRAY T90 barely on the list.
• SMP continue to increase (from 118 machines to 133 machines)
• 2 network of workstations are on the list based on commodity parts (Alpha processor based) These machines are at positions 98 and 114
• Increase in the number of machines located in the US (from 272 machines to 298 machines)
• Decrease in the number of machines located in Japan (from 92 machines to 69 machines)
• Increase in the number of machines manufactured in the US (from 431 machines to 443 machines)
• Decease in the number of machines manufactured in Japan (from 69 machines to 57 machines)
• There are no Japanese machines in the US; 1 Japanese machine in Canada NEC SX-4/128M4 at the Atmospheric Environment Service (AES), Dorval, Canada, Weather Research
• # of machines used in industry continues to increase from 178 machines to 206 machines
• # of machine used in research continue to decrease from 180 machines to 139 machines
• # of machines used in for academic use continue to decease from 94 machines to 90 machines
• # of machines used in for classified work increased from 35 machines to 46 machines
• Usage in telecommunication industry grow strongly - from 19 machines to 47 machines
• SGI has 36% of installed systems but 50% of installed performance.
• Average system sizes in processor numbers by manufacturer are:
  • SGI 203
  • IBM 178
  • Sun 48
• Average system size in processor numbers by country installed:
  • US 220
  • Japan 135
  • Europe 117