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Cray Inc. is Number One in New IDC Supercomputer Rankings
SEATTLE, WA -- Supercomputer provider Cray Inc. (Nasdaq:CRAY) today announced it was number one in the new, more comprehensive rankings of supercomputer performance recently reported by industry analyst firm IDC. On the new IDC Balanced Rating test, developed with extensive input from supercomputer users in government, industry and academia, Cray® supercomputers dominated in both of the top two categories. • In the Capability Class, representing the world's most powerful supercomputers, Cray systems made up about 39 percent of the total (58 of 149 systems), versus about 16 percent each for the two next-highest competitors. • In the Enterprise Class that includes less-powerful supercomputers priced from $1 million, Cray systems comprised 45 percent of the total (43 of 95 systems), versus about 15 percent for the next-highest competitor. • Four of the top 10 supercomputers in the global rankings were NEC SX-5 Series vector systems. Under a previously announced OEM agreement, Cray Inc. has exclusive rights to distribute the new NEC SX-6 Series and successor products in North America, and non-exclusive distribution rights in most other areas of the world. The IDC Balanced Rating improves on current `peak performance' figures and the Linpack test that is the basis for the semiannual `Top500' list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. Erich Strohmaier, an author of the `Top500' rankings, noted earlier that ``Linpack is a pure CPU (processor) benchmark and was not designed to measure other system attributes that may contribute significantly to real-world performance, including internal memory speed, disks, and external networks.'' The new IDC Balanced Rating includes Linpack and supplements it with additional tests of processor performance, memory system performance and scaling performance. More than a year ago, U.S. supercomputing organizations banded together as the HPC User Forum and identified performance measurement as their most crucial concern. They asked IDC to develop a better standard test of the overall capabilities of the computers, while the HPC User Forum began the more time-consuming task of creating a benchmark suite to test performance on actual workloads representing a wide range of users. ``We're pleased that standard tests are emerging that more accurately predict the actual capabilities of supercomputers,'' said Cray Inc. President and CEO Michael P. Haydock. ``The tougher the tests, the better we believe Cray systems will do.''
--------------------- ----------------- -------------- CAPABILITY TOTAL (149) % TOTAL CLASS --------------------- ----------------- -------------- Cray 58 38.9 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- IBM 24 16.1 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- SGI 24 16.1 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- Compaq 15 10.1 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- NEC 12 8.1 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- Fujitsu 8 5.4 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- Hitachi 7 4.7 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- Intel 1 0.7 --------------------- ----------------- -------------- --------------------- ---------------- --------------- ENTERPRISE TOTAL (95) % TOTAL CLASS --------------------- ---------------- --------------- Cray 43 45.3 --------------------- ---------------- --------------- Compaq 14 14.7 --------------------- ---------------- --------------- HP 13 13.7 --------------------- ---------------- --------------- SUN 10 10.5 --------------------- ---------------- --------------- NEC 9 9.5 --------------------- ---------------- --------------- SGI 6 6.3 --------------------- ---------------- ---------------For more information visit www.cray.com
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