Lucid Hydra 200: Vendor Agnostic Multi-GPU, Available in 30 Days

[Spectrobozo]

it works!
the scaling is not impressive, but not bad... quite interesting, I would like to see different things, like one GTX 260 running physx and rendering the game with the 4890 at the same time, and some strange things, like a HD4890 and a slower card, like a 9600GT..

[Computurd]

well there are a few sites that recently recieved a hands-on testing with the hydra:
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Luci...ance-Revealed/

http://techreport.com/articles.x/17934

[gumballguy]

edit: merged thread, post unnecessary

[motox]

the performance from mixing two brands is incredible! cool tech

[gumballguy]

It's alive!!!!

Only so far as its not vapourware.

Commercially speaking, or as far as expectations go.... DOA (for the time being, anyway)

[STEvil]

they should have run that batman game with them mixed to see if AA would still be enabled.. and phsyx.. and how performance would do lol.

Already posted in other thread. Plz close this one.

Also its been suggested that its not hands-on, that it was prepared by lucid, due to having the same pics on both sites (havent confirmed this myself yet)

The pics are close but not identical. They were taken from different angles which means it was an in-house setup for sure at least.

[kromosto]

better then i expected but still i think it will have lot of problems

[Computurd]

I predict that by this time next year half of us will have this

[trinibwoy]

Only so far as its not vapourware.

Commercially speaking, or as far as expectations go.... DOA (for the time being, anyway)

Yeah, but I'm impressed that it works at all (which is still to be independently verified it seems). But as expected it will depend heavily on profiles for application support and we still need to have a proper IQ analysis - especially for the mixed brand setups. At the least it will encourage ATI and Nvidia to step up their game.

[Frag Maniac]

While this technology is a bit revolutionary as mentioned in the PC Perspective article, it's also looking to be a bit of a novelty vs practical. I would wager to guess most considering multi GPU even as an upgrade path vs initial setup are going to want to go with same GPU vs dissimilar ones to get the best performance, what gamer wouldn't? It's not hard even a yr or two after building to find the same GPU you started with, and at an even better price. The exception would be someone starting out with a GPU that is already a gen old or more, and that's not that common in gaming enthusiast rigs that use multi GPU. Smart gaming rig builders would opt to avoid that scenario.

This would take away the primary "advantage" of Hydra technology, and even that so called advantage is not showing good scaling. You add that to the fact that performance is hit and miss as far as games that play better or worse than SLI/Crossfire even with similar GPUs, and what you have is near equal performing technology for all intents and purposes at the disadvantage of being already WAY behind on title support. Don't get me wrong, initially I was optimistic that games wouldn't have to be compatible with this tech and that even dissimilar GPUs would scale well, but that appears not to be the case. And quite frankly, they almost NEED that to be the case to compete getting started so late in the multi GPU game.

I was starting to get skeptical when I saw that MSI's "flagship" Big Bang gaming MB was to be a P55 vs X58. Sorry if that sounds pessimistic. I really wanted to like, no LOVE this tech, but the realist in me says it's not looking what it's cracked up to be. It's no doubt more practical a project than Nvidia's PhysX, but I'm not sure it will be best used in gaming. The end of the article is where it really started sounding practical IMHO. So, in summary I now see why Nvidia and ATI did not pursue marketing scaling with dissimilar GPUs or even profiles other than split or alternating frame rendering (w/ the exception of ATI's Supertiling). Looks like they've already done their homework and saw it as a waste of time.

[Xoulz]

Anyone notice that these "previews" were really done by Lucid?

Both Techreport and PCPer(and hot hardware) are using images from the same setup. My only conclusion is that they dont even have these setups in house... and that Lucid is providing them with all these #'s

Oh' boy.. if you read those reviews, you'd know why.

Coincidentally, these are not actual performance figures, it just a preview of what HYDRA is capable of. Somewhat rudimentary style (the breakout-box, etc), just to squelch the incessant nay-sayers.

Basically, Lucid is tipping their hand and showing they aren't hiding anything, it's a unexpected delay.

[randomizer]

I say good on them for at least trying something new. We need more innovators.

[flopper]

i guess I wanna see 4, 5770 running hydra.
since that would show if the hydra scale better using 4 cards than current crossfire/sli etc..

[Xoulz]

i guess I wanna see 4, 5770 running hydra.
since that would show if the hydra scale better using 4 cards than current crossfire/sli etc..

Yeah, I wanna see how far you can stress it. Thought, I thought I remember them saying that you can just add another HYDRA.

Hence the HYDRA name.. makes you wonder.

[phantomferrari]

you guys really shouldnt rag so hard on lucid. a lot of you are already judging them when they dont even have a product out yet. do any of you remember how broken sli was when nvidia first introduced it? i say give them a year or so and if their product hasnt improved by then you are more than welcome to rag on them

[annihilat0r]

For me, there isn't much difference between 60 percent and 70 percent scaling. When it comes to multi GPU, the biggest problem is microstuttering. I want frametime numbers.

[zalbard]

MSI Big Bang Fusion + 2x GTX470 + HD5870 (German)
Translated

This team with an Intel Core i7-860 at 2.9 GHz has also run through 3DMark 06 and it showed a score of 18,823 points, with 8x anti-aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering.

[ajaidev]

Lucid Hydra 200 does not make a lot of sense for intel parts might as well get a x58 + i7 920/930 instead of 1156 + Lucid Hydra 200 mobo.

But for AMD on the other hand its a very very good solution you get kinda ability to SLI and crossfire on the same mobo. I also hope MSi releases a 890GX Lucid Hydra mobo well i do like the igp

thx for the review zalbard

[=SOC= Admiral]

I cant wait for the MSI 870A GD60 Hydra for AMD. http://overclockershq.com/partner-si...#axzz0jYpwyzcq

[Soulburner]

I guess I'm not seeing an advantage to running mixed GPUs.

Multi-card on Intel boards though, sure.

[ajaidev]

I cant wait for the MSI 870A GD60 Hydra for AMD. http://overclockershq.com/partner-si...#axzz0jYpwyzcq

Its good but only 2 pcie slots means i cant add GT 240 for physx with 5870 cf . So a 890GX with lucid maybe better.

[=SOC= Admiral]

Its good but only 2 pcie slots means i cant add GT 240 for physx with 5870 cf . So a 890GX with lucid maybe better.

Why would I do that? I was looking at it for 2x GTX480s, they happen to be perfectly spaced.