VizWorld.com

Some prototypes of the Lucid Hydra 200 Multi-GPU solution have been shipped to reviewers, and the results are promising for an early build unit.

After running Lucid’s test bed through an assortment of tests in several graphics configurations, we have a better idea on how well the Hydra 200 performs. Using the components available to us, we saw impressive scaling in most instances, which peaked at 85% in dual-GPU mode. The mixed ATI / NVIDIA combo ran pretty well and fell within the expected range of performance throughout testing.

It remains to be seen if Nvidia will allow something like this to exist in the market, they’ve previously stated their intent to intentionally disable it at the driver level.  If it comes to market, it shows huge potential tho.

via Lucid Hydra 200 Multi-GPU Performance Revealed – HotHardware. and PCPerspective

Hardware benchmark, hydra, lucidlogix, multigpu

MSI has unveiled their latest motherboard offering, the “Big Bang Gaming” series.

The first Big Bang branded mainboard, Trinergy is designed with eye-catching features such as NVIDIA SLI technology and QuantumWave™ audio processing with the latest THX TruStudio PC and Creative EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0 plus exclusive performance boost design from MSI.

The really interesting part is that this is the first motherboard (in my knowledge) to offer the Lucid HYDRA chipset, meaning you can run multiple GPU’s from multiple manufacturers in the same system.

Pricing and release date TBA.

Update: More news from Guru3D.

• MSI P55 GD80 Fuzion = with the Lucid Hydra chip — this motherboard has been delayed to Q1 2010.
• MSI P55 GD80 Trinergy = with the NVIDIA NF200 chip (adds additional PCIe lanes to the motherboard) and thus is likely tri-SLI ready.

via MSI announces Big Bang Gaming Series Mainboards.

Hardware hydra, lucidlogix, msi

LucidLogix is back in the news with a new chipset called ‘Hydra’ which offers a completely new way to support multi-GPU’s in systems.  What makes it different than SLI and CrossFire you may ask?  Well, first you need to understand one of the major drawbacks of those technologies:

Nvidia’s SLI and ATI’s Crossfire run in alternative frame rendering (AFR) mode where each card renders one frame. Problem is, there are inter-frame dependencies, and for each GPU one always renders more than one frame ahead – often two – to make the GPU more efficient.

So when users run triple or quad SLIs (or Crossfires), they are actually rendering at least eight if not more threads ahead. If a user is running a game at 30fps, eight frames is a big deal: he would experience either an eight-frame delay or skipped frames and lowered performance.

The “Hydra” system works by dividing the scene into discrete objects, such as segmenting a scene into floor, walls, characters, weapons, particle effects, etc.  These objects can be distributed among the various GPU’s, and then re-composited by the Hydra chipset.  It’s a far more scalable solution than SLI or Crossfire, but puts additional load on the software to properly segment the scene.

Will it take-off? Who knows.  As multi-GPU becomes more commonplace as an alternative to higher-end video cards (Moore’s law in action, if you can’t make `em faster, just make more of `em) solutions like this will keep popping up.

via Multi gpu tech lucid to take on graphics giants – The Inquirer.

Hardware gpu, lucidlogic, lucidlogix, multigpu, sli, xfire