MSI Big Bang Marshall P67 Motherboard with Lucid Hydra Pictured

[btarunr]

MSI is readying a new high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel P67 chipset, geared for overclocking, that features the LucidLogix Hydra Engine chip, that gives out no less than eight PCI-Express x16 slots (electrical lane configurations may vary). The Big Bang Marshall is an XL-ATX motherboard, it makes use of a strong 18-phase CPU VRM that makes use of DrMOS, solid-state chokes, and POSCAP capacitors. The four DDR3 DIMM slots support dual-channel DDR3-2000 MHz memory. The PCI-E 2.0 x16 link from the processor is wired to the Lucid Hydra chip, which controls all installed graphics card, irrespective of make and generation, and creates a multi-GPU array with it. This means that you can pair AMD Radeon graphics cards with NVIDIA GeForce ones, and can even mix and match different GPUs of the same make.

That aside, the Big Bang Marshall features four SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s ports, two USB 3.0 ports, dual gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel HD audio, and tons of overclocker-friendly features such as OC Genie, consolidated voltage measurement points, and a feature-rich BIOS. The board is slated for release after Intel's early-January launch of the 2011 Core processor family, which starts off with quad-core Core i7 and Core i5 processors.



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[KaelMaelstrom]

wow look at that!! 8 PCI-E slots, with lucid hydra. 2 580 and 2 6970 maybe

 

[Mussels]

wow look at that!! 8 PCI-E slots, with lucid hydra. 2 580 and 2 6970 maybe

lucid doesnt work with dual GPU cards.

last tests i saw, scaling worked better with low end cards than high end, possibly CPU limited or something.

 

[Kantastic]

lucid doesnt work with dual GPU cards.

last tests i saw, scaling worked better with low end cards than high end, possibly CPU limited or something.

580's and 6970's are single-GPU cards.

 

[D4S4]

It does look very badass. now i wonder what is the simplest way to cool all the crap one would toss in...

 

[bear jesus]

8 single slot water cooled 580's?

That's one monster of a board, if it were possible to run and cool 8 580's it would make a folding farm in a case

 

[theonedub]

I don't think there are enough phases

 

[bear jesus]

I don't think there are enough phases

I agree, where is the MSI board with 32 phases?

That just made me realize something

18-phase CPU VRM that makes use of DrMOS

It's this board that caused the DrMOS shortage, it has over 4 6870's or 6 6850's worth of them per board

 

[btarunr]

It's this board that caused the DrMOS shortage, it has over 4 6870's or 6 6850's worth of them per board

These boards use Renesas-made ones, while Cayman boards use more compact TI-made ones.

 

[bear jesus]

These boards use Renesas-made ones, while Cayman boards use more compact TI-made ones.

aww ruined my poking fun at MSI

I had doubted that they would be the same ones i just wanted to make fun of MSI because i could probably never bring myself to spend however much this board will be on the motherboard alone, I'm just jealous

 

[Volkszorn88]

Personally, I like boards that have extravigant looking north & south bridges. But that's just me.

 

[Drone]

nice beast

dual gigabit Ethernet

I wouldn't ever need this tho

 

[function69]

This board means business

 

[pantherx12]

I want benchmarks of 8 cards ploz

 

[caleb]

Wouldn't it be more efficient and comfy to just link computers to each other instead of putting 8 computers on a single board ? Starts to look like
http://www.flickr.com/photos/muchomas/310733952/#/photos/muchomas/310733952/lightbox/

 

[theubersmurf]

8 single slot water cooled 580's?

That's one monster of a board, if it were possible to run and cool 8 580's it would make a folding farm in a case

Too much bandwidth limitation probably. Though it would be pretty cool to see how well a large array of cards would scale, particularly with lucid.

 

[983264]

Looks like the Asus Crosshair 4 Extreme has a rival coming to town, and that's the MSI Big Bang Marshall... No PCI Slot is a con for me, but for others, not...

 

[Disparia]

Oh yeah! Time for those low-end cards with 1GB or 2GB of memory to really shine!

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

8 single slot water cooled 580's?

That's one monster of a board, if it were possible to run and cool 8 580's it would make a folding farm in a case

No .. .

As 460's or even 450's would put a 5850 to shame, example 1 GTX 470 folds over 13,000 PPD, my 4870x2 folds 4,200 ppd that's over 3x the ppd for a card that's about 10%'ish less powerful! AMD is a giant fail for GPU folding.

 

[Mussels]

No .. .

As 460's or even 450's would put a 5850 to shame, example 1 GTX 470 folds over 13,000 PPD, my 4870x2 folds 4,200 ppd that's over 3x the ppd for a card that's about 10%'ish less powerful! AMD is a giant fail for GPU folding.

i thought x2 cards didnt fold on the second GPU, so thats a very poor comparison.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

i thought x2 cards didnt fold on the second GPU, so thats a very poor comparison.

With a huge amount of tinkering you can get them to do so, roughly 2,100 PPD per core, however they can't seem to fold past 95% core usage, even so it's a fair comparison. Now that said your not going to find an AMD card that can fold like an Nvidia card it will always fold at 2-3 times more PPD.

 

[bear jesus]

No .. .

As 460's or even 450's would put a 5850 to shame, example 1 GTX 470 folds over 13,000 PPD, my 4870x2 folds 4,200 ppd that's over 3x the ppd for a card that's about 10%'ish less powerful! AMD is a giant fail for GPU folding.

I thought it was the folding client that was fail for ATI/AMD cards as after a few generations ago newer cards showed no difference in performance so something like a 3850 is about as good as a 5870 due to fail software as I'm pretty sure a 5870 is at least a little more powerful than a 3850

 

[Mussels]

I thought it was the folding client that was fail for ATI/AMD cards as after a few generations ago newer cards showed no difference in performance so something like a 3850 is about as good as a 5870 due to fail software as I'm pretty sure a 5870 is at least a little more powerful than a 3850

thats what i read, supposedly a new AMD client is in the works.

 

[Disparia]

^ We've been holding our breath, unfortunately a significant number have died.

 

[bear jesus]

thats what i read, supposedly a new AMD client is in the works.

^ We've been holding our breath, unfortunately a significant number have died.

Yep, i gave up waiting many months ago.

Because of that i want a Nvidia card in my htpc to fold as even a low end Nvidia card can beat the top end AMD/ATI card as things stand, but I keep spending all my money so folding will have to wait