AMD Powers World's Fastest Computers, but Intel Holds Majority

According to an updated list of the world's Top 500 fastest computer systems, IBM's powerful Roadrunner supercomputer, installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has managed to keep the number-one spot for the second year in a row. The said system was closely followed by Cray's Jaguar supercomputer. Both high-performance systems are built using AMD's high-end Opteron processors, which are also included in some of the world's highest performance systems. In the meanwhile, Intel released a press statement, saying that its processors are featured in the majority of systems present in the latest Top 500 list.

IBM's high-end Roadrunner became the first supercomputer to break the Petaflop barrier back in June 2008, delivering a performance of 1105 petaflops. Designed on a combination of 6562 dual-core AMD Opteron processors and 12,240 IBM Cell chips, the Roadrunner system has 98TB of memory and is built inside 278 refrigerator-sized IBM BladeCenter racks. In terms of performance, the system is closely followed by the Cray Jaguar XT5 supercomputer, which can deliver 1059 petaflops. This system is powered by a total of 37,544 AMD's Quad-Core Opteron processors and 300 TB of memory.

Meanwhile, Intel's processors are used in the majority of the Top 500 systems, with 399 now being powered by Intel processors, followed by IBM's Power processors in 55 systems and AMD's Opteron processors in 43 systems.

“High performance computing has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of Intel’s server business, and Intel is committed to continue to push the boundaries of the world’s highest end supercomputers harder than ever before,” Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group, said. “The new Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series extends the world-record performance and energy efficiency the TOP500 supercomputers demand, and we are delighted to see once again that more supercomputers than ever before are embracing the Intel Xeon processor as a result.”

The list of the world's Top 500 supercomputers has been compiled at the University of Mannheim, Germany, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and is available at the Top 500 website.