Tuesday, August 11th 2009
MSI ''Big Bang'' P55 Motherboard Implements Lucid Hydra
MSI already has its task cut out when Intel's first socket LGA-1156 processors hit stores. With entry-level P55-CD53, mid-range P55-GD65, enthusiast-range P55-GD80, and a micro-ATX P55M-GD45 motherboard offering in place, the lineup seems just about complete, except for two mysterious motherboards that aren't part of the list. First being the G9P55-DC that packs an NVIDIA BR-03 bridge chip that enables 3-way SLI with better interface bandwidth to the three graphics cards, and second is under the looking-glass today. Codenamed "Big Bang", this prototype motherboard by MSI packs a LucidLogix Hydra technology, which clearly on paper, is the next big thing as far as multi-GPU systems go.
MSI P55 "Big Bang" looks similar to the P55-GD80, except for that under the top chipset heatsink (which, by the way, is purely cosmetic on the GD80), is a Lucid Hydra chip. The chip connects to all three (or four) PCI-Express x16 slots (lane configuration not known), and allows Lucid's multi-GPU technology that lets you make practically any combination of graphics cards, for performance scaling. The member cards needn't have parity on their performance, as the Hydra chip does all the load-balancing by itself. Products based on Hydra are slowly, but surely showing up in small numbers for now, including enterprise-grade rack-mount graphics rendering boxes like this one, conceived a long time ago. A lot of details are yet to emerge, especially around if there are more motherboard manufacturers eying Hydra, about when a Hydra-based product actually makes it to shelves, and more importantly, when does MSI plan to sell this and G9P55-DC.
Source:
IOPanel
MSI P55 "Big Bang" looks similar to the P55-GD80, except for that under the top chipset heatsink (which, by the way, is purely cosmetic on the GD80), is a Lucid Hydra chip. The chip connects to all three (or four) PCI-Express x16 slots (lane configuration not known), and allows Lucid's multi-GPU technology that lets you make practically any combination of graphics cards, for performance scaling. The member cards needn't have parity on their performance, as the Hydra chip does all the load-balancing by itself. Products based on Hydra are slowly, but surely showing up in small numbers for now, including enterprise-grade rack-mount graphics rendering boxes like this one, conceived a long time ago. A lot of details are yet to emerge, especially around if there are more motherboard manufacturers eying Hydra, about when a Hydra-based product actually makes it to shelves, and more importantly, when does MSI plan to sell this and G9P55-DC.
87 Comments on MSI ''Big Bang'' P55 Motherboard Implements Lucid Hydra
Sounds cool hopefully it will work out for the better. Shame there is no numbers.
im gonna get sooo flamed for sayin that :D :P
1156 = new hotness
You dont get all the cool accesories on the old 'n busted.
Thats what you get for being an early adopter.
Its strange though because Nvidia were talking about their "the big bang" coming soon but maybe its different from this "big bang".
I hope its as good as they say.
1156 is will smith, and therefore gets the new stuff :P
nvidias big bang and big bang II were different things
Anybody want to guess how Nvidia/ATi are taking it? :nutkick:
Plus i have already had a years worth of kickass performance while peasants have still got socket 775 boards. (lol im joking im a peasant too but i spend all my money on computers)
its part of the 'new hotness'
but i would LOVE to see this work in real life.
285+4770+voodoo3? lol
no bridges? the drivers seem like alot of work, and overclocking them? lots of questions here.
but if they get this to plug and play and only one driver with no bridge(s)....amazing.
Don't go dreaming about ATI+nVidia LOVE, it won't happen.
Also there is no point in a lawsuit from ATI or nVidia since both CF and SLI are already licensed all for LGA1366 and LGA1156 platforms. I believe it was announced yesterday. It is the reason why you won't see Lucid chips on AMD motherboards too soon. Another reason will be that Intel Capital is one of key investors in Lucid Tech along side Giza Venture Capital and Genesis Partners. Until you see AMD/ATI on that list, you're out of luck.
Half the reason for windows XP installs corrupting, was two video drivers loading at once - and i dont mean ATI + nvidia, i mean half of one nvidia driver and half of another.
why do you think so many drivercleanup tools were created? to wipe them all out and solve the problem. MS *fixed* this problem, by only allowing one to load at a time.
anything that makes my OS more stable, is a win IMO.
agreed: anyone else got info on this? Sihastru has some interesting info a few posts up
But this is shit hot if it works man and scales :rockout: