Over the past few weeks we have seen images and stories leaked onto the net about a new motherboard from MSI ( Micro Star International) Code named “ Big Bang” this new, yet to be released, P55 Based motherboard will feature a Lucid Hydra Chip integrated onto the motherboard.
What’s so special about this new chip? The Lucid Hydra chip provides the capability to enable multi GPU support for both ATI and Nvidia without requiring actually support from either company. While ATI’s Crossfire technology is already present in the Intel P55 chipset, in order to get full SLI support an Intel motherboard needs to feature an Nvidia 200 chipset.
The Lucid Hydra chip goes further still by promising near linear scaling in performance. This means that instead of gaining roughly 50% performance increase with SLI or Crossfire, customers would see a near 100% improvement in performance with identical cards. Furthermore since the Lucid Hydra chip handles all of the load balancing it can accommodate miss matched cards this supposedly works both within brands, such as two Nvidia or ATI cards, as well as outside of the brand, such as one Nvidia card pared with one ATI card. If this works as advertised it would mean the end of both Nvidia and ATI’s hold on their respective multi GPU technologies. Something that I am sure they are none too happy about.
An added and probably very intentional effect from this is that Intel’s forthcoming discrete video card solution will undoubtedly be able to work with both ATI and Nvidia solutions removing a pretty large barrier to entry in the enthusiast market. It should be noted that Intel is one of Lucids larger finical backers.
So far there has been no set release date for this motherboard or any pricing information. With such a unique feature, the board is sure to carry a price premium. The question still remains as to why MSI would use a mid range chipset and processor line to release such a game changing piece of technology.
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