No team had more pressure on them than the Texas Longhorns. They were attempting to complete the hat trick – a three-peat victory at SC.
As you’ll see in the video, they’re a bit nervous. In fact, it’s the first time in four competitions that I’ve ever heard them admit they felt any pressure or jitters, which tells you just how much pressure they’re feeling.
We talk about their team composition (they lost some team members to the pro ranks) and their system config. They’re pretty fired up about their box this year. Even though they have fewer nodes, they figure they’re about 30% faster due to more advanced CPUs.
They also talk about their move to eschew GPUs this year. According to the team, they don’t see much value in them for this slate of apps. (In our upcoming comprehensive results blog, we’ll examine that contention to see if there’s any truth to it.)
This competition is unique because the Texans’ archrival University of Oklahoma is also competiting in New Orleans. I couldn’t resist trying to get a little range war started between the two teams. The Texas guys were gracious, but still lobbed a few shots towards the kids from Norman.
In the background of this and other videos, you’ll occasionally hear what I’ve dubbed the “Siren of Shame.” It’s the signal that some hapless team has gone over the 3,000 watt power cap. Competition organizers this year are taking a harder line on power cap violations – even assessing penalties for teams that go over the cap for too long or too often.
Posted In: Latest News, SC 2014 New Orleans
Tagged: supercomputing, Student Cluster Competition, HPC, The University of Texas at Austin, SC 2014, Meet the teams