Upcoming MSI Motherboard to Feature Lucid Hydra Chip

Category: Motherboards
Posted: August 12, 2009 10:12AM
Author: jammin

NVIDIA's SLi and AMD's Crossfire technologies have both evolved into respectable multi-GPU solutions that allow serious gamers to drive high resolution displays with high levels of in game settings at playable frame rates. If recent information from Israeli website iopanel.net proves accurate then we could soon be seeing a third option for multi-GPU setups, with MSI's upcoming P55 "Big Bang" motherboard reportedly making use of Lucid's HYDRA engine chip. The chip takes up a position usually occupied an SLI-enabling NVIDIA part (the nf200) and takes over multi-GPU duties, which in theory could enable AMD and NVIDIA cards to work together, as well as provide near linear scaling in rendering performance (at least according to Lucid). The Hyrda chip is also expected to take on multi-GPU duties for Intel's upcoming Larrabee, what with Intel Capital being one of Lucid's investors.

There isn't enough information to get excited about just now, but we will certainly keep our ears to the ground for any details of what the Hydra chip will mean for the MSI board's multi-GPU capabilities.