Highlights from the Top 50

  • The entry level into the TOP50 is at 19.4 TF/s
  • The U.S. has about the higher percentage of systems (64 percent) in the TOP50 than in the TOP500.
  • The dominant architectures are custom build massively parallel systems MPPs with 52 percent ahead of commodity clusters with 44 percent.
  • IBM leads the TOP50 with 34% of systems and 43 percent of performance.
  • No 2 is DELL with 16 percent of systems and 10.5 percent of performance.
  • Cray is third with 12 percent of systems and 13.8 percent of performance closely followed by SGI with 12 percent of systems and 13.4 percent of performance.
  • HP absent from the TOP50 six month ago has now 10 percent of systems and 10.7 percent of performance.
  • 52 percent of systems are installed at research labs and 34 percent at universities.
  • There is no system using Gigabit Ethernet in the TOP50.
  • IBM's BlueGene is the most used system family with 10 systems (20 percent).
  • Intel processors are used in 48 percent of systems ahead of IBM's Power processors in 30 percent and AMD in 10 percent.
  • The average concurrency level is 15,690 cores per system up from 11,300 six month ago.
  • The average age of a TOP50 system is only about 1 year and 6 month. 70% have been installed or upgraded this year and 20 percent last year.