] The brand new "Big Mac" supercomputer at Virginia Tech
] could be the second most powerful supercomputer on the
] planet, according to preliminary numbers.
]
] Early benchmarks of Virginia Tech's brand new
] supercomputer -- which is strung together from 1,100
] dual-processor Power Mac G5s -- may vault the machine
] into second place in the rankings of the worlds' fastest
] supercomputers, second only to Japan's monstrously big
] and expensive Earth Simulator.

It was relatively inexpensive, too. $5.2 million. Theoretical peak performance is 17.6 teraflops. The developers are hoping to achieve 80% of that performance.

Update on TechWeb at http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031105S0011

The significance here is the steep drop in computing resources available for solving large problems. How many problems become economically tractable if there were a bunch of computers like this available to industry and academia?

Wired News: Mac Supercomputer: Fast, Cheap