Supercomputers/Systems/SuperMike
USA · operational · hpc
SuperMike
Also known as LSU SuperMike, LSU CAPITAL Beowulf cluster
Operated by Louisiana State University .
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
- 2.21 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 3.69 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 59.9%
- Cores
- 1,024
- 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 | - Atipa Technologies built and delivered the Beowulf-class cluster | Atipa Technologies | - | Verified | phys.lsu.edutop500.org |
| CPU | - Intel Pentium 4 Xeon DP 1.8 GHz, 512 dual-processor nodes | Intel | 1,024 verified | Verified | phys.lsu.edutop500.org |
| Interconnect | - Myricom Myrinet network plus Fast Ethernet | Myricom | - | Verified | phys.lsu.edutop500.org |
| Operating system | - Red Hat Linux 7.2 | Red Hat | - | Reported | phys.lsu.edu |
The read
Louisiana State University's Beowulf-class cluster from Atipa Technologies: 512 nodes, each with two 1.8 GHz Intel Xeon DP processors (1,024 in all), 2 GB of RAM, an 80 GB IDE disk and Myricom Myrinet plus Fast Ethernet, running Red Hat Linux 7.2. LSU's page says the hardware arrived in May 2002, the system was fully operational by August 2002, and its HPL run of 2.207 TFlop/s was submitted to TOP500 that month; TOP500 shows the same 1,024 processors, 2,207 GFlop/s Rmax and 3,686 GFlop/s Rpeak (https://www.top500.org/system/168168/). It first appears on the November 2002 list at rank 17, and stayed listed through June 2006 (rank 450). LSU, which bought it through its CAPITAL centre with state funds appropriated in 2001-02, housed it on the first floor of Frey Hall on the LSU campus; no site is linked here. Last evidence is the June 2006 list.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Change history
- 2026-10-09 Added SuperMike
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 |
|---|---|---|
| phys.lsu.edu | names system only | - |
| top500.org | names system only | - |
Checked 2026-10-09 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.
Further reading
Operating a supercomputer
Acceptance testing, why "installed" and "in production" are six months apart, and the machine lifecycle.
Inside a node
Latency-optimised versus throughput-optimised processors, NUMA, and the end of the host-to-device copy.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.