Supercomputers/Systems/MPI/IPP Garching IBM p690
Germany · operational · hpc
MPI/IPP Garching IBM p690
Also known as RZG IBM p690 cluster
Operated by MPCDF .
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
- 2.73 TFlop/s
- Rpeak
- 5.32 TFlop/s
- Rmax ÷ Rpeak
- 51.4%
- Cores
- 1,024
- 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 MPI/IPP Garching IBM p690, and those in Germany. 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 | 2.73 TFlop/s | #18 of 46 · top 38% | #87 of 95 · bottom 10% |
| Rmax ÷ Rpeak | 51.4 % | #38 of 46 · bottom 19% | #91 of 94 · bottom 4% |
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 | - IBM eServer pSeries 690 Turbo 1.3 GHz | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgmpcdf.mpg.de |
| CPU | - IBM POWER4 1.3 GHz dual-core, 1,024 cores | IBM | 1,024 reported | Reported | top500.org |
| Interconnect | - IBM Colony switch (TOP500) / HPS Federation switch (MPCDF) | IBM | - | Reported | top500.orgmpcdf.mpg.de |
| Operating system | IBM AIX Operating systems Unix (System V-derived) · Proprietary IBM AIX | IBM | - | Reported | top500.org |
The read
IBM POWER4 (pSeries 690, 1.3 GHz) system of the Max Planck Society's Garching computing centre, successor of the Cray T3E (mpi-ipp-garching-t3e). MPCDF's history page records the IBM Power4-based system with initial shipments in October 2001, upgraded to 3.8 TFlop/s in 2002 and 5.2 TFlop/s in 2003 and equipped with the HPS 'Federation Switch', whereas TOP500 labels the interconnect Colony for these entries. TOP500 tracks the growth as separate records: 208 cores in June 2002 (rank 82, https://www.top500.org/system/170340/), 752 in November 2002 (rank 21, Rmax 2,010 GFlop/s, https://www.top500.org/system/170317/), 768 in June 2003 (rank 24, https://www.top500.org/system/170319/), 822 in November 2003 (rank 31, https://www.top500.org/system/173113/) and 1,024 cores in November 2004 (AIX, Rmax 2,735 and Rpeak 5,324.8 GFlop/s, rank 75), the configuration recorded here (https://www.top500.org/system/174173/). MPCDF's own peak figures (3.8 and 5.2 TFlop/s) sit slightly below TOP500's Rpeak for the 752 and 1,024-core steps. Later MPCDF machines (Power5 p575, Blue Gene/P, Power6 'vip') are described on the same history page.
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 MPI/IPP Garching IBM p690
Nearby in scale
The machines closest to MPI/IPP Garching IBM p690 by Rmax, smaller to larger.
- Cheetah (ORNL) · USA, decommissioned · 0 PFlop/s
- SuperMike · USA, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- ASCI Blue-Pacific · USA, decommissioned · 0 PFlop/s
- Seaborg · USA, decommissioned · 0 PFlop/s
- Mammouth-Ms · Canada, operational · 0 PFlop/s
- Bluesky · USA, decommissioned · 0 PFlop/s
Related systems
Same operator
- MPI/IPP Garching Cray T3E · Germany, operational, 1996
- Genius (Garching) · Germany, operational, 2007
- VIP (Garching) · Germany, operational, 2008
- Hydra (MPCDF) · Germany, operational, 2013
- Draco · Germany, operational, 2016
- COBRA · Germany, decommissioned, 2018
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 |
|---|---|---|
| mpcdf.mpg.de | 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.
The interconnect
Topologies, why latency and tail behaviour matter more than bandwidth, and how the fabric market consolidated.