Intel puts Lucid Hydra on x58

IT LOOKS LIKE Intel is not content with their x58 'Smackover' board, and is going to add a Lucid Hydra chip to the next revision. Yup, improved in every way, plus mix-and-match GPUs, what's not to love?

Early word from people who claim to have seen boards in the orient confirms what the moles say, a Lucid Hydra chip, plus a few other goodies like an LED status readout. Moles inside second biggest blue say that the board is pretty much changed everywhere in detail, and that can't be a bad thing.

This confirms what people told me a while ago, that Intel is taking gaming seriously and is listening to feedback. The last few Intel gaming boards have been fast, solid and feature laden, but lack that special pop the low-IQ set seems to crave. Luckily Intel isn't adding LEDs galore and shiny bits, just functionality and things that matter. Good for them.

In the end, you will get a fast board that won't have heatpipes that double as a house for your hamster, but you will get mix and match GPUs. This board is going to be one to watch. µ

theInquirer

Finally linear performance scaling on multiple gpu configs? About time!

2x 8800gt SLI = average 140% performance over 8800gt

2x 8800gt SLI + Hydra = 200% performance over 8800gt

3 GTX280's in Tri SLI/2 GTX295/2 HD4870x2 + hydra = win ?

Now all we need is a 50% price drop in DDR3, i7 cpus, and LGA1366 motherboards.Swiftstrike5

if this is true then i wait i'll be able to throw a another 4870 1G for 200% prformance boost or a 4870x2 for 300%!!! that would be pretty awesome wouldnt have to upgrade for a while

So any word on how this works? Cause it seems to good to be true.albi321

Basically the Hydra breaks down the API calls into smaller pieces and evenly gives them out to the GPU that it deems best to render. GPU sends back the part it completed, Hydra puts it together and sends it back to a GPU to render it.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3385&p=1

Intel puts Lucid Hydra on x58

IT LOOKS LIKE Intel is not content with their x58 'Smackover' board, and is going to add a Lucid Hydra chip to the next revision. Yup, improved in every way, plus mix-and-match GPUs, what's not to love?

Early word from people who claim to have seen boards in the orient confirms what the moles say, a Lucid Hydra chip, plus a few other goodies like an LED status readout. Moles inside second biggest blue say that the board is pretty much changed everywhere in detail, and that can't be a bad thing.

This confirms what people told me a while ago, that Intel is taking gaming seriously and is listening to feedback. The last few Intel gaming boards have been fast, solid and feature laden, but lack that special pop the low-IQ set seems to crave. Luckily Intel isn't adding LEDs galore and shiny bits, just functionality and things that matter. Good for them.

In the end, you will get a fast board that won't have heatpipes that double as a house for your hamster, but you will get mix and match GPUs. This board is going to be one to watch. µ

theInquirer

Finally linear performance scaling on multiple gpu configs? About time!

2x 8800gt SLI = average 140% performance over 8800gt

2x 8800gt SLI + Hydra = 200% performance over 8800gt

3 GTX280's in Tri SLI/2 GTX295/2 HD4870x2 + hydra = win ?

wklzip

Very nice.

[QUOTE="albi321"]So any word on how this works? Cause it seems to good to be true.LordEC911

Basically the Hydra breaks down the API calls into smaller pieces and evenly gives them out to the GPU that it deems best to render. GPU sends back the part it completed, Hydra puts it together and sends it back to a GPU to render it.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3385&p=1

[QUOTE="LordEC911"]

[QUOTE="albi321"]So any word on how this works? Cause it seems to good to be true.Swiftstrike5

Basically the Hydra breaks down the API calls into smaller pieces and evenly gives them out to the GPU that it deems best to render. GPU sends back the part it completed, Hydra puts it together and sends it back to a GPU to render it.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3385&p=1

They are saying no, but there obviously will be.
There is obviously the **BIG** added latency of running everything through the Hydra chip, then to top it off, all the extra performance you can gain is going to be solely based on how good the Hydra Engine is. It is the one that needs to figure out the scene, break it down, send off the jobs to the GPUs, put the scene together and send it to a GPU to render it. You have to assume that the Hydra Engine has it's own imperfections with it's parallelism, dynamically assessing the scene and algorithims.

Logic dictacts that there has to be a quite obvious, underlying flaw to this "solution" and we won't know what it is for another 3-4 months.