IDF 2009: The Best Tech From The Show Floor

LUCID Hydra 200

Delivering the industrys first truly dynamic and universal parallel graphics technology, LucidLogix Technologies (Lucid) was at IDF and were happy to show off chosen Intels next-generation P55 platform with the HYDRA 200 chip built-in. This real time distributed processing chip with GPU sharing capability allows for the mixing and matching of GPUs in any configuration for improved performance. It has been designed from the ground up to gives OEMS, consumer gamers and game developers the ultimate freedom to choose the computing components they want and need.

The HYDRA 200 real time distributed processing engine is Lucids second-generation parallel graphics processor that works with any GPU, CPU or chipset to provide scalable 3D graphics performance in a multi-GPU computing environment. The HYDRA 200 is faster, more flexible, smaller and more power-efficient than its predecessor silicon, the HYDRA 100 that we got to see last year at IDF.

One of the MSI P55 Big Bang motherboard powered systems in the booth was running a pair of ATI Radeon graphics cards on Windows 7, but there was a slight catch. One graphics card was an MSI Radeon HD 4890 while the other was an MSI Radeon HD 4770. LUCID was showing that their solution can mix and match different ATI graphics cards just like ATI can with CrossFire.

The other MSI P55 Big Bang motherboard powered system was running NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards with the same principle, but keep in mind you can’t mix and match different types of NVIDIA cards on a typical SLI solution. If you plan on running Windows 7 you can actually pair an ATI and NVIDIA graphics card together so that they can be load balanced for better performance.

MSI will be the first motherboard vendor to feature the Hydra 200 chip on their Big Bang P55-based mmainboard. This motherboard is due out at the end of October, so you don’t have too much longer to wait if a solution like this is something you think you’d benefit from.