Wednesday, November 20, 2013

China's Super Computer Retains Title of Fastest

 
China's Tianhe 2  which can operate at 33.863 trillion operations a second again retains it's title as world's fastest computer, a benchmark it set in June of 2013.  The benchmark is called the Linpack and it compiles it's list twice yearly.  

From the BBC News online article:
  • It  (the linpack benchmark) measures how fast the computers can solve a special type of linear equation to determine their speed, but does not take account of other factors - such as how fast data can be transferred from one part of the system to another - which can also influence real-world performance.
IBM has five out of the top ten fastest computers believes that the test should be changed to reflect the way computers are used today.  For example the Linpack does not measure how fast data travels inside the computer.  This is very important on the usefulness of the system.  However officials from Linpack hint that the test changes would not take place. 

 Worlds top 10 fastest computers

1. Tianhe-2 (China) 33.86 petaflop/sec
2. Titan (US) 17.59 petaflop/sec
3. Sequoia (US) 17.17 petaflop/sec
4. K computer (Japan) 10.51 petaflop/sec
5. Mira (US) 8.59 petaflop/sec
6. Piz Daint (Swiss) 6.27 petaflop/sec
7. Stampede (US) 5.17 petaflop/sec
8. Juqueen (Germany) 5.09 petaflop/sec
9. Vulcan (US) 4.29 petaflop/sec
10. SuperMuc (Germany) 2.90 petaflop/sec
(Source: Top500 List based on Rmax Linpack benchmark)

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