Our list has been compiled twice a year since June 1993 with the help of high-performance computer experts, computational scientists, manufacturers and the Internet community in general who responded to a questionnaire we sent out. We have also used parts of statistical lists published by others for different purposes.
In the present list (which we call the TOP500), we list computers ranked by their performance on the LINPACK Benchmark. While we make every attempt to verify the results obtained from users and vendors, errors are bound to exist and should be brought to our attention. We intend to continue to update this list bi-annually to keep track of the evolution of computers. Hence, we welcome any comments and information. Please use either our info@top500.org email address or log on http://www.top500.org/ and use the contact link. The list is available at no cost and you can create additional sublists and statistics out of the TOP500 database on your own. Here you also have access to postscript versions of slides dealing with the interpretation of the present situation as well as with the evolution over time since we started this project.
The authors of the Top500 reserve the right to independently verify submitted LINPACK results, and exclude systems from the list which are not valid or not general purpose in nature. By general purpose system, we mean that the computer system must be able to be used to solve a range of scientific problems. Any system designed specifically to solve the LINPACK benchmark problem or have as its major purpose the goal of a high Top500 ranking will be disqualified.
