Wednesday, March 3rd 2010
AMD Platform Meets Lucid Hydra on MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra
MSI has undertaken a very interesting project: to use the Lucid Hydra chip on an AMD platform motherboard, its second design with Lucid Hydra. The 870A-GD60 Hydra is a socket AM3 motherboard based on the AMD 870 + SB850 chipset. The AMD 870 chipset succeeds the AMD 770, in being suited for single discrete-graphics setups. The chipset packs no PCI-Express external switching, and hence there is only one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link it can give to a graphics card. MSI connected this link to a Hydra Engine chip, to give out two full-bandwidth PCI-Express 2.0 x16 links. "Why not simply use the 890FX?" could be a question for many, but its answer lies in Hydra's advantage over it: it allows you to pair two NVIDIA graphics cards, two ATI graphics cards, or even mix an NVIDIA and an ATI card in a mixed multi-GPU array, as has been demonstrated with MSI's P55 Big Bang Fuzion motherboard.
The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase DrMOS based VRM. The CPU connects to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. It connects to the AMD 870 northbridge over the HyperTransport 3.0 interface. Its lone PCI-E 2.0 x16 port is taken up by the Hydra Engine chip located between the two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Other expansion slots include three PCI-E x1, and one PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Connectivity includes 8 channel HD audio with SPDIF connections, eSATA by an additional controller, FireWire, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The 870A-GD60 Hydra could be released late next month.
Source:
Tweakers.net
The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase DrMOS based VRM. The CPU connects to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. It connects to the AMD 870 northbridge over the HyperTransport 3.0 interface. Its lone PCI-E 2.0 x16 port is taken up by the Hydra Engine chip located between the two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Other expansion slots include three PCI-E x1, and one PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Connectivity includes 8 channel HD audio with SPDIF connections, eSATA by an additional controller, FireWire, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The 870A-GD60 Hydra could be released late next month.
23 Comments on AMD Platform Meets Lucid Hydra on MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra
Very promising!
While I do hope that this chip succeeds, never really liked the proprietary nature of SLI, I have some serous reservations about it's future and certainly would not spend a few hundred dollars to gamble that it will stick around.
I can certainly see some benefits, though few of them apply to me. Like trying configurations that are not normally possible, 4 x GT240/1GB cards for instance. Could it take a GTX285 (similar price)? This is of course just silly fun. The more viable cases like keeping my 4870 and adding a 5870 or GTX4x0 is mildly appealing, but performance needs to be top for me to consider it.
It's a proper chipset :laugh: (had to mostly since I know you'll get it)
And, IMO, their review was rubbish anyway, because no American Muscle car review is a good one without the Dodge Viper...and don't say "price was a concern" because the ZR1 is $100,000.