Supercomputers/Systems/System X
USA · decommissioned · hpc
System X
Also known as Big Mac; Virginia Tech Terascale Cluster
Operated by Virginia Tech .
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
- 10.28 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 17.60 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 58.4%
- Cores
- 2,200
- 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 | - Self-built cluster of 1,100 Apple Power Mac G5 desktops, rebuilt on Xserve G5 racks in 2004 | Virginia Tech | - | Reported | top500.orgarchive.vtmag.vt.edu |
| CPU | - PowerPC 970 dual 2.0 GHz per node (2.3 GHz PowerPC 970FX after the 2004 rebuild) | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgmacworld.com |
| Interconnect | - Mellanox InfiniBand, with Gigabit Ethernet switches | Mellanox NVDANASDAQ
rolls up to NVIDIA | - | Reported | top500.orgmacworld.com |
| Operating system | - Mac OS X | Apple | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
Virginia Tech's self-built cluster of 1,100 Apple Power Mac G5 desktops with dual 2.0 GHz PowerPC 970 processors on InfiniBand, running Mac OS X. TOP500 lists it third on the November 2003 list at 10.28 TFLOPS Rmax (17.6 peak). The university's alumni magazine says it was launched in October 2003, cost 5.2 million dollars at startup and about 6.5 million with upgrades, and was rebuilt with Apple Xserve G5 rack servers in 2004, which lifted Linpack to 12.25 TFLOPS. TOP500 carries a later 2004 entry at 12.25 TFLOPS under the same name. No retirement date appears in the pages we cited, so the status date is the data refresh. TOP500 is the only source for the 2003 Rmax, so the tier is reported.
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
- 2026-10-02 Added System X, Virginia Tech's Power Mac G5 cluster
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 |
|---|---|---|
| top500.org | does not name this system | - |
| archive.vtmag.vt.edu | 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.