United Kingdom · decommissioned · hpc

HECToR

Also known as HECToR Cray XE6

Operated by EPCC at Advanced Computing Facility, Edinburgh .

Phase 1 seed dataset, compiled by hand. These rows were built from public operator, laboratory and vendor sources. A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 1092 of 1153 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 40 are genuinely weakly sourced. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier. Treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.

Measured performance

Rmax: 660.24 TFlop/s
Rpeak: 829.03 TFlop/s
Rmax ÷ Rpeak: 79.6%
Cores: 90,112
Power: -
Per watt: - GF/W

Figures are as last publicly reported for the configuration described below, not a live measurement. Where a system was upgraded in place, the post-upgrade configuration is shown and the earlier one appears in the timeline.

What this machine is made of

One row per supplier relationship. “Supplier at build” is the company that shipped the part at the time; where that company has since been acquired, the parent it rolls up to today is shown beside it. That distinction is what makes ticker-level aggregation possible across a thirty-year dataset.

Role	Part	Supplier at build	Quantity	Confidence	Source
Integrator	- Cray XE6	Cray HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	top500.org en.wikipedia.org
CPU	AMD Opteron 6276 (Interlagos) CPUs x86-64 · 16C · 2.3 GHz · 32 nm · 115 W Opteron 6276 16C 2.30 GHz	AMD AMDNASDAQ	-	Reported	top500.org en.wikipedia.org
Interconnect	Cray Gemini Interconnect 3D torus · About 6 GB/s per direction per link · Around 1 microsecond Cray Gemini interconnect	Cray HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	top500.org
Operating system	Cray Linux Environment Operating systems Linux, Cray-customised · Proprietary layer over open-source Linux Cray Linux Environment	Cray HPENYSE rolls up to Hewlett Packard Enterprise	-	Reported	top500.org en.wikipedia.org

The read

The UK academic national supercomputer service run by EPCC with STFC and NAG. The service began in October 2007 as a Cray XT4 and ended in March 2014, and was upgraded in phases (XT4, XT6, then the phase 3 XE6 with 16-core Interlagos Opterons in late 2011). The figures here are the TOP500 entry for the phase 3 XE6: 90,112 Opteron 6276 cores on Gemini, nineteenth on the November 2011 list, its best rank. Wikipedia is the source for the phase history and dates. TOP500 is the only source for Rmax, Rpeak and cores, so the tier is reported.

Timeline

2007-10 First operational source
2011-11 List debut at #19 (November 2011) source
2014-03 Decommissioned source

Public list appearances

Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.

#19: TOP500, November 2011 →

Site & facility

Advanced Computing Facility, Edinburgh

Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Cooling: Direct liquid cooling
Commissioned: 1990

archer2.ac.uk

Change history

2026-10-02 Added HECToR, the UK academic Cray service, nineteenth on the November 2011 TOP500

Source check

We fetched this system's own citations and recorded whether each page actually mentions it. This is a corroboration signal, not a fact check, and it is published so you can see how well the sourcing holds up rather than take it on trust.

Cited source	Result	Found on the page
en.wikipedia.org	names system and part	AMD Opteron 6276 (Interlagos), Cray Gemini, Cray Linux Environment
top500.org	names system and part	AMD Opteron 6276 (Interlagos), Cray Gemini, Cray Linux Environment

Checked 2026-10-09 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.