SA Supercomputer Champs: how they did it

[jes]

SA Supercomputer Champs: how they did it

Team South Africa won the recent Student Cluster Challenge using an 8-node cluster with Dell-sponsored equipment

 

[BeVonk!]

I hope some of the guys are active here. Proud of you guys!

 

[Catal]

I wonder how exactly the competition worked? Did they know beforehand which components would be available at the competition, so that they could optimize a build during preparation for the competition?

Did they win because they had experience with good configurations? Why did they do better than the rest of the world, considering that e.g. the US and China should have had much better resources for preparation?

 

[sutekj]

Well done!

 

[elvis_presley]

I wonder how exactly the competition worked? Did they know beforehand which components would be available at the competition, so that they could optimize a build during preparation for the competition?

Did they win because they had experience with good configurations? Why did they do better than the rest of the world, considering that e.g. the US and China should have had much better resources for preparation?

From the article:

InsideHPC reported that the key to winning the day was the fact that Team South Africa used graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate three of their benchmark applications.

No other team was able to do this, according to InsideHPC

Everyone in the world has access to the same kind of hardware, at this entry-level... the differentiation is in software implementation. I think that was the point of the competition. Hardware's the easy part.

 

[drukkie]

I wonder how exactly the competition worked? Did they know beforehand which components would be available at the competition, so that they could optimize a build during preparation for the competition?

Did they win because they had experience with good configurations? Why did they do better than the rest of the world, considering that e.g. the US and China should have had much better resources for preparation?

maybe read the whole article...

 

[Maverick Jester]

Always good to see South Africans doing well... Excellent work guys!

 

[KaMoS]

This makes me so proud. Let's hope Team SA can continue their success in this competition.

 

[saliehendricks]

GG!!!

 

[warrena]

Now if only they can learn to keep the flag the right side up...