Lucid Hydra 200 in 30 days

[faxon]

Originally posted by: thilan29
I'd be willing to pay a $50 premium but I don't know if I'd pay $100 extra...hopefully it isn't that much more expensive. Although if it works as advertised it may be worth the premium. Also, the arrival of DX11 cards (with DX11 features only being able to run on the DX11 card in say a mixed-DX setup) adds another complication to the whole mix I think...hopefully DX12 is a LONG way off.

considering how much work microsoft has put into making DX11 implement every feature they wanted in DX10 and more i would say that while they are probably already developing DX12 they want DX11 to evolve and innovate on its own for a while so they have some direction to drive DX12 in in the first place lol.

im quite interested in knowing how well this works with DX10 and DX11 cards running concurrently though, cause i have a 9800GTX and an HD4670 at my disposal as well, and if either of them work well, i can always dump one in and use the other in my second comp. would be great if it works tho, cause then i could still use my HD4670 for a little extra oomph alongside 2 HD5870s and keep my 9800GTX in the other box for folding until GT300 comes along

also bfdd, word is that second gen X58 boards are supposed to be coming out around the same time as well, so we will probably see an x58 sporting this in the near future as well (hopefully)

 

[Majic 7]

Just saw a post by Kyle at HardForums in which he says Nvidia is talking about blocking Lucid with code on its products. They had better pray that Lucid doesn't work all that well because I can't see them staying in business for long if they do this. Kyle thinks the whole idea is worthless , why would any one want to mix and match cards anyway. What an idiot. The more I think about it, in other words make up stuff in my head, this may all be part of Intel's master plan, marginalize Nvidia until they are of no factor what-so-ever and then hold the Lucid chip over AMD's head until they halt all legal actions. A round of Whoop-ass for everyone.

 

[biostud]

I can't see why nvidia or AMD would make a lawsuit againts it. It's an extra chip that needs to be added to the mboard, and therefore you still need an nvidia/AMD/intel chipset. If any the it should just increase the interest of SLI/CF setups if the scalability is as good as they say.

The only problem I could see would be mixing dx10/dx10.1/dx11 cards. In that case I would suspect they would run on the "lowest" dx standard.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: Majic 7
Just saw a post by Kyle at HardForums in which he says Nvidia is talking about blocking Lucid with code on its products. They had better pray that Lucid doesn't work all that well because I can't see them staying in business for long if they do this. Kyle thinks the whole idea is worthless , why would any one want to mix and match cards anyway. What an idiot. The more I think about it, in other words make up stuff in my head, this may all be part of Intel's master plan, marginalize Nvidia until they are of no factor what-so-ever and then hold the Lucid chip over AMD's head until they halt all legal actions. A round of Whoop-ass for everyone.

huh? people would still have to buy the video cards from nvidia, its to their advantage as more people will buy their mid-range low end cards and pair them up. Are they blind to this? Lucid doesnt MAKE the video cards, it just scales them, and if you need 2 then nvidia and amd should be happy.

personally i think lucid sounds too good to be true, but i'll wait for the reviews.

 

[imported_Shaq]

Well, if Nvidia is blocking PhysX if an ATI card is present then it is plausable they will try to block the Hydra. But will it block Nvidia and ATI cards being together or will it even block two different Nvidia cards? I would bet on the former and hope not on the latter. Intel can get around SLI licensing fees with this chip and that may make Nvidia block running two different video cards from their own company just to keep SLI relevant. That would take two years or so before that scenario could come to fruition since the hydra requires a new motherboard and will only affect early adopters for the next year at least.

 

[Majic 7]

All Kyle said was block it on their products with code. Didn't differentiate between all Nvidia or a mix. I for one have sensed a note of panic in some of the stuff coming out of Nvidia for the last few months. Maybe reading too much into it but some of it just makes you wonder. I'm sure they are well aware of what new tech is coming and from where. Time will tell. And I also am in the this is too good too be true camp. Never thought it was vapor ware but it has always been too good to be true.

 

[Fox5]

Crossfire already comes basically free with most high end motherboards, so I can't really see this being worth it for the ati side of things, and it doesn't look like the premium will be less than the nvidia side of things.

 

[Majic 7]

What is free is being able to use the 2 3870's I have with the 4870X2 I am using now and getting 100% scaling, all cards adding up without having to buy another card. That is the too good to be true part. Not waiting for drivers to support CF or SLI, that depends on Lucid's drivers.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Sounded too good to be true a year ago, and that's why I wasn't surprised when it appeared to become vaporware. Now that it seems to be actually making it to the market, I'm very interested in seeing what it can do. Something tells me there might be a catch or else they've done one of the best cover up jobs in tech history.

 

[poohbear]

if it works as advertised then im a bit worried about Nvidia. Here's a solution that makes SLI irrelevant, and ATI just released the 5800 series vid cards w/ not a word from Nvidia. Competition is good, and i'd hate to see Nvidia take a beating it can't recover from.

 

[biostud]

If nvidia is trying to block lucid hydra as well as physX+Ati cards, they remind more and more of a company in the defence. They get a lot of negative atention about things they're not allowing people to use their videcards for instead of what they actually can be used for.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Majic 7
Just saw a post by Kyle at HardForums in which he says Nvidia is talking about blocking Lucid with code on its products.

You didn't have to be Nostradamus to see this one coming. Heck, I predicted the possibility back when we saw the Hydra preview.

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: geoffry
I take it this thing does nothing for SLI on a stick cards?

Someone will have to try 4x GTX295's or 4x HD 4870X2's and tell us if they can play Crysis at 2560x1600.

 

[Genx87]

I have to admit. This is really interesting technology if it works like they claim.

 

[Genx87]

btw how would Nvidia block Hydra? This looks like it intercepts and balances the api calls between two GPUs. It should be out of their hands.

I am interested in knowing how the technology is able to balance between two different perfoming GPUs perfectly?

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Genx87
btw how would Nvidia block Hydra? This looks like it intercepts and balances the api calls between two GPUs. It should be out of their hands.

I am interested in knowing how the technology is able to balance between two different perfoming GPUs perfectly?

Since their (NV's) drivers still have to be used couldn't they simply inject code that is designed to detect the presence of Lucid hardware in the system and if detected then it (the driver) sets a flag that disables certain operational aspects of the hardware controlled by their (NV's) drivers?

Would doing this be describable as playing nasty? Yes.

Would doing this violate any laws? None that I know of.

If Hydra simply works as good as SLI then look to see some thrashing around as NV no doubt feels like they are being squeezed out of the marektspace between Intel from the left and AMD from the right.

Jensen made no bones about it with Intel, I doubt he'll suddenly put on a muzzle with Lucid.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: Genx87
btw how would Nvidia block Hydra?

Code would look a lot like this:

if( present_ati() || present_lucid_chip() ) {
halt_and_catch_fire();
}

 

[deimos3428]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I am interested in knowing how the technology is able to balance between two different perfoming GPUs perfectly?

It measures their performance in real-time vs. expected based on the GPU, and adjusts the load as required. (The Hydra drivers would need to be updated rather frequently to keep up with the newest cards...)

 

[Gikaseixas]

if it works i'm in. Might hold off on my P55 purchase for now.

Great idea btw

 

[alyarb]

why are people so obsessed with mixing radeons with geforces anyway? You get perfect scaling with multiple radeons or multiple geforces also. The idea behind this is that Crossfire is horrible, SLI sucks, and hydra is better than both. Simply because you can mix cards doesn't mean you have to. Buy whatever damn cards you want and mix them. nvidia should feel threatened by this because they're the only ones who make only GPUs. everyone else makes CPUs and chipsets. i want them to humiliate themselves in a fight against hydra. it's so funny when the big bitch tries to stop the inevitable but inadvertently hastens it.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: poohbear
if it works as advertised then im a bit worried about Nvidia. Here's a solution that makes SLI irrelevant, and ATI just released the 5800 series vid cards w/ not a word from Nvidia. Competition is good, and i'd hate to see Nvidia take a beating it can't recover from.

Um... as I recall, not too long ago ATI's marketshare was like 30% and NVIDIA's 70%.

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: alyarb
why are people so obsessed with mixing radeons with geforces anyway?

Because for the first time, multi-GPU becomes a possibility for those of us who only buy one GPU per generation. Now we'd be able to keep our existing GPU in the system while adding the new one. Sometimes NVidia has the best bang-for-the-buck card, sometimes ATi does. So this way, with a board that has Hydra, the brand of your upcoming GPU purchase doesn't matter - take whatever it is, swap it into the primary PCIe slot, and move your existing GPU down to a secondary slot. Now your system has the new hardware generation for primary usage and the added processing power of your old card to assist in games.

Hydra, if it works as we anticipate, will allow you to have the performance of both cards (in most 3D intensive circumstances) instead of just your new card. So you are gaining an extra performance equal (or near enough) to your old card in addition to your new card that would otherwise have simply replaced the old card.

There are a lot of important questions though, including:

Does this intermediary chip add input latency?

Do you only get the hardware features of the least powerful or oldest card in your system? i.e. if you have a DX11 card and a DX10 card, can you use DX11 graphics in a game and still get any use out of the DX10 GPU or would that game then only use your DX11 card?

Does it really work with an ATi and an NVidia card together or only different cards from a single manufacturer?

 

[imported_Lothar]

Until I see benchmarks, I'll assume this is another "KillerNIC" like product...All talk and no substance.
I'm not sure why people are already drooling over it without any reviews.

 

[ronach]

How about a plug-in Hydra PCI-e card so we all don't have to buy new mobos to get into this technology. My sys is no slouch..not the newest..but tough enough to do the deed.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: ronach
How about a plug-in Hydra PCI-e card so we all don't have to buy new mobos to get into this technology. My sys is no slouch..not the newest..but tough enough to do the deed.

Now I'm holding off on my X58 purchase to see if this comes down the line, sooner rather than later, for a X58 board.