Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Lucid Hydra 200: Vendor Agnostic Multi-GPU, Available in 30 Days
Anandtech ^ | September 22nd, 2009 | Anand Lal Shimpi

Posted on 09/24/2009 12:07:49 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

A year ago Lucid announced the Hydra 100: a physical chip that could enable hardware multi-GPU without any pesky SLI/Crossfire software, game profiles or anything like that.

At a high level what Lucid's technology does is intercept OpenGL/DirectX commands from the CPU to the GPU and load balance them across any number of GPUs. The final buffers are read back by the Lucid chip and sent to primary GPU for display.

The technology sounds flawless. You don't need to worry about game profiles or driver support, you just add more GPUs and they should be perfectly load balanced. Even more impressive is Lucid's claim that you can mix and match GPUs of different performance levels. For example you could put a GeForce GTX 285 and a GeForce 9800 GTX in parallel and the two would be perfectly load balanced by Lucid's hardware; you'd get a real speedup. Eventually, Lucid will also enable multi-GPU configurations from different vendors (e.g. one NVIDIA GPU + one AMD GPU).

(Excerpt) Read more at anandtech.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: hitech

1 posted on 09/24/2009 12:07:49 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: All

The MSI Big Bang, a P55 motherboard with Lucid's Hydra 200
2 posted on 09/24/2009 12:08:56 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Support Geert Wilders)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ShadowAce

fyi


3 posted on 09/24/2009 12:09:27 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Support Geert Wilders)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: All

NVIDIA and ATI running in multi-GPU mode on a single system
4 posted on 09/24/2009 12:14:54 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Support Geert Wilders)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

I’m suprised they don’t disable each other..


5 posted on 09/24/2009 12:18:43 PM PDT by rahbert (When you're hot, you're hot, When you're not, you're not.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Interesting concept.

My 680i board has 3 PCI-express x16 slots...slapping in my 8800gtx to boost the GTX280 that’s in there now would be great.


6 posted on 09/24/2009 12:38:42 PM PDT by Malsua
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

That is neat!
Of course, 1,500 watt power supplies aren’t cheap (yet...)


7 posted on 09/24/2009 1:07:13 PM PDT by astyanax (Liberalism: Logic's retarded cousin.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Malsua

It appears to me,...the board will have the chip as a surface mount...so you need a Mobo with the chip on it...


8 posted on 09/24/2009 1:47:44 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Support Geert Wilders)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
So now instead of buying multiple cards at once, you just add the latest every year. interesting.
9 posted on 09/24/2009 2:30:34 PM PDT by right way right
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
It appears to me,...the board will have the chip as a surface mount...so you need a Mobo with the chip on it...

It was an intellectual exercise. Same concept cept you can use different cards.

10 posted on 09/24/2009 5:56:48 PM PDT by Malsua
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson