What is a HPC

Scientific computing generally revolves around researchers performing complex calculations as fast as possible. The super computers of the 70s, 80s and 90s were custom built to provide researchers with access to a machine with more memory (RAM) and CPU cores than the small, slow and expensive desktop computers of the era. These large machines such as those build by Cray and SGI were expensive and

High Performance Computing is a term used to describe a form of supercomputing based upon off the shelf hardware.