PfHP High-performance computers are for high-performance computing

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Unit 0.5.1 High-performance computers are for high-performance computing

Some of the fastest computers in the world are used for scientific computing. At UT-Austin, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) has some of the fastest academic machines.

You may enjoy the following video on Stampede, until recently the workhorse machine at TACC.

This is actually not the most recent machine. It was succeeded by Stampede2.

Now, what if these machines, which cost tens of millions of dollars, only achieved a fraction of their peak performance? As a taxpayer, you would be outraged. In this course, you find out how, for some computations, near-peak performance can be attained.