Lucid chip finally appears

[Saiyan_Overlord]

http://www.iopanel.net/forum/thread31404.html

During the last week we have seen many new P55 based motherboards,
among them the new line of MSI , and today , IOPANEL.NET gives you an
exclusive look at the "Hidden" member of MSI product line - The Big Bang,
which is a P55 motherboard with Lucid Hydra chip - which should enable the
operation of NVIDIA and ATI based video cards on the same motherboard.

Who Is Lucid ?

Lucid is an israeli company, located at Kfar-Neter, which is developing the Hydra Chip, which is a Chip that should enable the use of NVIDIA and ATI
video cards on the same motherboard.the company holds some cooperation agreements with some of the biggest players in hardware industry, and the
motherboard that we preview today is one of the first products of this
cooperations.

The Lucid Hydra chip, as mentioned before should enable the use of 2
different video cards together on the same motherboard.
We have been told in the past that there will be different versions of the
chip - one will enable the usage of video cards like HD4870 along with a
HD4650 for example , another version will enable the usage of NVIDIA based
video cards together - like a GTX260 together with 9600GT for example,
and of course one version will enable a mix of video cards -ATI video card
together with a Nvidia video card on the same motherboard.
The Hydra chip is responsible for the Balance and link between the different
video cards.

The Big Bang -

MSI P55 "The Big Bang" is a P55 based motherboard, which hosts the Lucid Hydra chip that will replace the nf200 chip.
As you can see in our photos, the Hydra Chip is located between the CPU socket and the first/Upper PCI-Express Slot.
As for now we can't tell which one of the versions of the Hydra is placed on the motherboard, and how it performs ,
but a source inside one of the companies told us that the Hydra Chip is working as planned.

Been a long while since I last heard about this chip. Its not the same as SLI/Crossfire though because it uses different techniques to SPR/AFR as one card would say render the map/background/skybox while another would render models for example, therefore theoretically allowing 100% GPU scailing.

If I had one reason to go P55, it would be this . However, supposedly, X58 boards were to get it too according to theinq as reported some time back (perhaps the board is still in the design process?)

Oh a Lucid was bought out by intel some time ago too IIRC (I know they recieve investment funds from them, that much I remember). You can find more info here on Lucid's product page.

[ir0nhide]

Hotness, I'd live to be able to re-use older nvidia/ati cards no matter what my new primary is

[MomijiTMO]

Dunno, this was a huge thing for Intel mobos in the pre x58 days. Right now, I'm not entirely sure how useful it is.

[terrastrife]

Originally Posted by MomijiTMO

Dunno, this was a huge thing for Intel mobos in the pre x58 days. Right now, I'm not entirely sure how useful it is.

uhhh, what do you mean?

the hydra offers near perfect performance scaling, sli/xfire is about 50% at best dropping off to negative values with 4+ adapters. you also dont require matched cards.

[Dezza Bot]

Originally Posted by terrastrife

uhhh, what do you mean?

the hydra offers near perfect performance scaling, sli/xfire is about 50% at best dropping off to negative values with 4+ adapters. you also dont require matched cards.

I'd wait till you can see it working with your own eyes. That said a chip designed to split rendering loads in hardware should be a lot quicker than the current software sli/xfire.

[terrastrife]

Originally Posted by Dezza Bot

I'd wait till you can see it working with your own eyes. That said a chip designed to split rendering loads in hardware should be a lot quicker than the current software sli/xfire.

the old hardware demos when it was originally announced had sweet performance

[ywn]

at leaset when upgrading vga card the old one can still be used to get more $$ worth out if it

[CAPS LOCK]

was reading up on this a while ago, and i completely forgot, but when i heard this, i came in my pants. just imagine, the best from ati and nvidia...eg, 2x GTX 295 AND 2 x 4870X2 in the same rig. *drools*

on a slightly unrelated note, i wonder how it will perform with Folding at home?

[ford ftw]

This sounds interesting can't wait to see results.

[Saiyan_Overlord]

Originally Posted by CAPS LOCK

was reading up on this a while ago, and i completely forgot, but when i heard this, i came in my pants. just imagine, the best from ati and nvidia...eg, 2x GTX 295 AND 2 x 4870X2 in the same rig. *drools*

on a slightly unrelated note, i wonder how it will perform with Folding at home?

Dunno if the lucid chip can address Dual-GPU cards, there could be some limitations. The GTX 295 has a nf200 on it and ATI has their own controller on the 4870x2 for example.

[hello_goodbye]

Interesting stuff. Never knew you could do this kind of thing till now. Has a date been announced yet?

[Mau1wurf1977]

They will get sued as soon as they launch a product... Just wait and see

[TOFUGil]

Originally Posted by Mau1wurf1977

They will get sued as soon as they launch a product... Just wait and see

Why will they get sued? ...its not Crossfire or SLi..

[DOX]

Why bother to sue, Im sure nvidia has drivers in the work that disables and shutdowns your pc and erases your OS if it detects a lucid chip... or ati card..larabee etc (ala their physx drivers being disabled if ati cards are present :P)

[Saiyan_Overlord]

Originally Posted by DOX

Why bother to sue, Im sure nvidia has drivers in the work that disables and shutdowns your pc and erases your OS if it detects a lucid chip... or ati card..larabee etc (ala their physx drivers being disabled if ati cards are present :P)

Such a thing would be criminal and probably land nvidia in a lot of trouble with microsoft. I'm sure nvidia wouldn't resort to rootkit tactics (unlike sony, need I remind anyone) to prove their point. However its not impossible that they may use their drivers to lock out lucid chips.