VA Tech's Mac Super Computer Tests at 12.25 TFs, a Near 20% Increase

, putting its System X back up to fourth place among the world's super computers that have announced their Linpak benchmark results. Virginia Tech replaced System X's original 1100 dual 2GHz desktop Power Mac G5s with 1100 dual 2.3GHz Xserve G5s. That, along with optimized sofware, produced the nearly 20% boost in performance.

System X with 12.25 TeraFLOP performance will fall to 6th or 7th place when the world results are announced in November because larger and more expensive systems have been built or are being built by IBM and three U.S. government entities: NASA, Lawrernce Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Still, System X will be the fastest academic super computer in the world and at $5.8 million will have the best price performance ratio among all super computers by a factor of 2 or more. System X is currently operational contributing to science as it was designed to do.