The Power and Legacy of Virginia Tech’s Mac-Based Supercomputers

Stephen Hackett: As you can see from these photos, System X — pronounced “System Ten” — was built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s […] Honestly, I could end this article right here. Look how badass this all is! I really do love the look of the Power Mac G5. Virginia Tech built this supercomputer in the summer of 2003, with the goal of hitting 10 teraflops. Once it was up and running that fall, it ranked as the world’s third-fastest computer, and the fastest at an academic institution. You can see from this video that the G5 was chosen to hit these numbers without breaking the bank… If you are interested in older tech at all, this post is worth your time—while the horsepower is laughable today (for comparison, a single iPhone 12 can hit 1 teraflop, newer models are in the 2.5-3 range), there is something awe-inspiring about a bunch of off-the-shelf computers working together as a supercomputer. I vaguely remember this when it was new, and had to go digging—it was even mentioned by Apple in the…

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