Supercomputers/Systems/Cornell Velocity2
USA · operational · hpc
Cornell Velocity2
Also known as Velocity2 (V2)
Operated by Cornell University .
Researched with AI assistance, checked by scripts. These rows were researched by AI agents reading public operator, laboratory and vendor sources, appended by scripts and checked by automated validation; no subject-matter expert has reviewed them (how this site is made). A mechanical second-reader pass has since fetched every cited source: 1350 of 1581 systems have a readable citation that names them, and 64 are genuinely weakly sourced. Every claim carries its source and a confidence tier. Treat anything below verified as a lead, not a citation.
Measured performance
- Rmax
- 1.07 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 1.84 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 57.9%
- Cores
- 384
- Power
- -
- Per watt
- - GF/W
Figures are as last publicly reported for the configuration described below, not a live measurement. Where a system was upgraded in place, the post-upgrade configuration is shown and the earlier one appears in the timeline.
How it compares
Ranked against the other machines in this dataset that report the same figure: those that first came into service within two years of Cornell Velocity2, and those in USA. Computed from our tables; a metric is ranked only when at least eight peers report it.
| Metric | Value | Against its era | Against its country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rmax | 1.07 TFlop/s | #38 of 54 · bottom 31% | #314 of 332 · bottom 6% |
| Rmax ÷ Rpeak | 57.9 % | #37 of 54 · bottom 33% | #291 of 331 · bottom 13% |
Every metric is ranked largest-first, so a high power-draw rank means a big power draw, not a good one. Rmax ÷ Rpeak uses HPL-measured results only. Rankings move as machines are added; they describe this dataset, not the world.
What this machine is made of
One row per supplier relationship. “Supplier at build” is the company that shipped the part at the time; where that company has since been acquired, the parent it rolls up to today is shown beside it. That distinction is what makes ticker-level aggregation possible across a thirty-year dataset.
| Role | Part | Supplier at build | Quantity | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integrator | - Dell PowerEdge 2650 dual-processor servers | Dell Technologies | 128 reported | Reported | top500.orgcac.cornell.edu |
| CPU | - Intel Pentium 4 Xeon 2.4 GHz, 384 cores per TOP500 | Intel | 384 reported | Reported | top500.orgcac.cornell.edu |
| Operating system | - Microsoft Windows 2000 | Microsoft | - | Reported | top500.orgcac.cornell.edu |
The read
Windows-based Dell cluster of the Cornell Theory Center. A Cornell Chronicle release of 30 January 2003 describes Velocity2 (V2) as 128 Dell PowerEdge 2650 dual servers with 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors, 2 GB RAM and 50 GB disk per node, Gigabit Ethernet and Windows, part of a partnership with Dell, Intel and Microsoft providing 60 million dollars in resources; it says the installation put CTC at 88th on the November 2002 TOP500 list, the fastest Windows cluster in the US and second in the world after one at Seoul National University. The TOP500 record used here is later and larger: 384 cores (192 nodes) of Xeon 2.4 GHz under Windows 2000, Rmax 1,068 and Rpeak 1,843.2 GFlop/s, rank 49 in June 2003, its only appearance (https://www.top500.org/system/168184/). A 640-core PowerEdge 2650 entry at the same centre appears in November 2003 at rank 68 (https://www.top500.org/system/173191/). The release also names the smaller Velocity+ (64 PowerEdge 2450 dual servers, Giganet) and the first cluster Velocity1. The 128-node release figure and the 192-node TOP500 figure reflect different dates or configurations.
Timeline
Public list appearances
Pointers only: rank and edition, linking to the canonical entry. We do not reproduce list tables. See sourcing policy.
Change history
- 2026-10-17 Added Cornell Velocity2
Nearby in scale
The machines closest to Cornell Velocity2 by Rmax, smaller to larger.
- ASCI Red · USA, decommissioned · 0 PFlop/s
- AVIDD · USA, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- GM DL360G3 Cluster · USA, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- Sony Pictures Imageworks xSeries Cluster · USA, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- NSC Monolith · Sweden, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- ISM Altix 3700 · Japan, operational · 0 PFlop/s
Related systems
Same operator
- Cornell SP2/512 · USA, decommissioned, 1995
Source check
We fetched this system's own citations and recorded whether each page actually mentions it. This is a corroboration signal, not a fact check, and it is published so you can see how well the sourcing holds up rather than take it on trust.
| Cited source | Result | Found on the page |
|---|---|---|
| cac.cornell.edu | names system only | - |
| top500.org | names system only | - |
Checked 2026-10-18 by pnpm verify. Re-run it and the table changes with the web.
Further reading
Operating a supercomputer
Acceptance testing, why "installed" and "in production" are six months apart, and the machine lifecycle.
Inside a node
Latency-optimised versus throughput-optimised processors, NUMA, and the end of the host-to-device copy.
Programming a supercomputer
The software stack beneath the application, and why the OS is now a sovereignty signal as much as a technical choice.