Classical vector systems still combine excellent performance with a well established optimization approach. On the other hand clusters based on commodity microprocessors offer comparable peak performance at very low costs. In the context of the introduction of the NEC SX-8 vector computer series we compare single and parallel performance of two CFD (computational fluid dynamics) applications on the SX-8 and on the SGI Altix architecture demonstrating the potential of the SX-8 for teraflop computing in the area of turbulence research for incompressible fluids. The two codes use either a finite-volume discretization or implement a lattice Boltzmann approach, respectively.