1,100 dual-processor Xserve G5s wired together into a crushing onslaught of computational brute force? Ah, that's nothing. Virginia Tech's System X cluster may have quickened our pulse back when it was the world's largest pile o' modern Macdom cobbled together into a single hive mind, but ever since we heard about the Army's new project last June, our techno-lust for raw power has been directed elsewhere. Remember? A military contractor by the name of COLSA Corporation planned to roll its own Virginia Tech-style Xserve cluster-- only with 1,562 Xserves this time around. How can we resist? Sure, the Virginia Tech folks have infinitely more style than any Army guys we've ever met, but c'mon... 462 extra Xserves? We're fickle supercluster groupies, man. We go where the teraflops are.

And clearly, Here There Be Teraflops. Faithful viewer klownhaus tipped us off to a fairly extensive (yet fluffy) three-page profile of the COLSA cluster, which makes a big thing about how the $5.8 million project-- named, as you may recall, the MACH5-- has a theoretical peak performance of 25 teraflops, compared to 40 for the $350 million Earth Simulator in Japan. (Of course, theoretical performance doesn't mean bupkis, but reasonable estimates place the MACH5's real-world performance to be roughly a third of that of the Earth Simulator... at a sixtieth of the cost.) Apple claims that's fast enough that the MACH5 could calculate in one measly second what it'd take a human being (a non-dying human being, but a human being nonetheless) with a calculator two million years to accomplish, and that's without breaks for eating, sleeping, or Laverne and Shirley reruns on the Lifetime channel.

Well, okay, yeah-- but can the MACH5 do that thing where you make it look like you're pulling the tip of your thumb off and then putting it back on again like nothing even happened? Ah-HA! See? Humanity wins again. Give yourselves all a pat on the back.

What's more, the MACH5 isn't even fully operational yet, so Immortal Calculator Guy would get a nice head start; the last we'd heard was that the system might be up and running by "late fall," hopefully in time to rank somewhere on November's list of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers. Based on our estimate of actual performance (15ish teraflops, give or take), the MACH5 would probably have slotted into the current list at number 3, so we're hoping that it'll stick a top-five position in the rankings this fall. See, photos of the five fastest are posted to the TOP500 home page, and since the chances of System X getting back up there are slim to none (it'd be ranked fifth in today's list, and newer and faster clusters are being built all the time), it'd be nice to have a snapshot of a Mac-based supercomputer up there, basking in the glory.

Anyway, if you're a Teraflop Slut like we are, check out Apple's pages on the MACH5; amid the technical details, the speed comparisons to some old guy with a Casio, and the well-deserved and utterly predictable self-congratulatory tone, you'll find a few requisite photos of racks upon racks packed full of Xserve-y goodness, and one small shot of a semi truck delivering 300 Xserves at a time. Wow. Is it... is it hot in here, or is it just us?