Lucid Hydra 200 - It's almost here!!!

Nah, I like the thread. This one seems to be much more intellectually based then the other. They're still hung up on the idea of a PCI-e bridge to another box....
 
BSN have another article http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...involved-in-the-lucid-msi-dispute-at-all.aspx

Just about the only person they don't seem to have managed to have direct conversation with is Charlie who started the whole rumour I think.

This basically sounds like a classic example of Charlie and his disciples spreading nvidia hate with no basis. While nvidia are no angels they aren't the dark side in this story.
 
One quick question here regarding the scaling %.

Since the GPU is only one (albeit important) component in the entire system, to actually double the total system performance (framerate), wouldn't that require literally doubling the performance of *every component* in the machine?

So that just doubling the GPU shouldn't on it's own actually show a 100% performance improvement, even with "perfect" scaling? And that the %improvement would be related to exactly how prevalent the GPU is in that particular workload?

Forgive me if it's been discussed before.
 
aggies11 said:
One quick question here regarding the scaling %.

Since the GPU is only one (albeit important) component in the entire system, to actually double the total system performance (framerate), wouldn't that require literally doubling the performance of *every component* in the machine?

So that just doubling the GPU shouldn't on it's own actually show a 100% performance improvement, even with "perfect" scaling? And that the %improvement would be related to exactly how prevalent the GPU is in that particular workload?

Forgive me if it's been discussed before.
Click to expand...
You do bring up a very good point, and the rest of the system holding the graphics cards back would explain why the graphs kinda level off with two very fast GPUs in use.
 
sbuckler said:
BSN have another article http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...involved-in-the-lucid-msi-dispute-at-all.aspx...
Click to expand...


Here's the X58 Hydra board, nice!

"We did find out some information that is good news for gamers though. Big Bang Fuzion P55 motherboard is not the only Lucid-based motherboard MSI is planning on. In the not too distant future you may be able to get the Big Bang Hydra 200-based board with the X58 chipset, which should tie nicely with the release of Core i9 processors in second quarter of 2010."

Wow, a nice direct quote - "In fact Tom (Nvidia) went on the record and insisted that we put the following quote: "If it (Hydra) is good for gamers - that is great for us”." So are they off the hook now I guess?

Good read overall, a lot of he said, she said crap though, what to believe?

Lets just see the actual MSI BB Fusion board running now, please! (with some numbers :p)

Gotta hand it to good ole' Charlie, he might put out some crap, be he did do a good job getting people to talk this time.
 
I still tend to agree with vengence here. Would you be willing to pay an extra $50 on your motherboard to have the ability to get an extra 15%? 10% more scaling over regular CF/SLI? If you're only getting a 15% performance boost by throwing an old ATI card in with your Nvidia, wouldn't you rather just get another Nvidia (even if it's slower than the ATI) and just do regular SLI, which should result in more net gain? Or if you get a 5870, do you really want to keep your loud, power-sucking GTX280 installed just to get an extra 15%? I doubt it would support the vendor-specific features like PhysX and Eyefinity on the other's cards - otherwise they'd already be running each other's stuff - so it would be doing each vendor's tricks on their own cards. Essentially running Eyefinity on the ATI card and using the Nvidia as an add-in PhysX card. Which is already possible, excluding driver lockouts.

I do still think this is great technology and hopefully it will lead to better features and more competition. However, it seems to be aimed at either reusing old cards or getting more performance out of high-end multi-card setups. These benchmarks seem to show that it's not all that great at either one though. Buying a new, expensive motherboard to get a 15% boost from an old card? That doesn't sound like a great value for the budget-minded folks. 50-80% scaling with what's essentially an SLI setup? That doesn't sound like massive improvements that will crush native SLI. Don't forget that you also now have another middleman between your video card and your game. We have yet to see how exactly what's needed to support new games or how well Lucid will keep up with that. If it takes them three months to get it working every time a new game comes out, I don't think I'm all that interested.

One other thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that it seems to be limited to two cards. This could simply be a limit of the demo version, though the (very simple) diagram seems to imply that it's limited to 2x x16 (or 4x x8). I believe that current high-end cards are very slightly limited by x8, so I would expect this to be a bigger issue by the time Hydra is actually available at retail and going forward. To take full advantage of four new cards, will we need a Hydra chip for each pair, plus a third Hydra to connect those pairs together?


Sabrewulf... said:
Nvidia says it didn't, won't block Lucid's Hydra
Yet...???
Click to expand...

They don't need to yet, as there's still no product available to consumers. I'm willing to bet they're working on it already, and its appearance will be based upon the arrival and performance of the retail product. If the retail product is noticeably more expensive with results similar to these, I wouldn't bother blocking it, as it doesn't seem to add a whole lot of value but the act of blocking it would have massive PR costs.


aggies11 said:
One quick question here regarding the scaling %.

Since the GPU is only one (albeit important) component in the entire system, to actually double the total system performance (framerate), wouldn't that require literally doubling the performance of *every component* in the machine?

So that just doubling the GPU shouldn't on it's own actually show a 100% performance improvement, even with "perfect" scaling? And that the %improvement would be related to exactly how prevalent the GPU is in that particular workload?

Forgive me if it's been discussed before.
Click to expand...

Doubling the framerate would require removing all bottlenecks that would exist up to twice the current framerate. Depending on the details of the hardware and software, it may be one or many components that are limiting it. The biggest bottleneck with 3D games is the GPU. In some cases, the amount of data the CPU can push to the GPU can also be a bottleneck. You don't need to double the performance of every component, you just need to upgrade each component that interferes with doubling the framerate to a level that supports double the framerate. For example, you might need to upgrade your 3GHz CPU to 4GHz (just for the sake of easy math) to be able to push enough data to the new GPU. This is only a 33% increase, and implies that a 2GHz CPU would be enough to handle the previous framerate.

http://www.benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/GTX 285 Tri Sli Analysis/P5.html shows a 90% increase in FPS with SLI GTX285's in CoJ. That's on a QX9650 @ 4.2GHz rather than an i7. While it's very possible that the rest of the system is limiting the demo Hydra, it should be easy to put it in a system where that wouldn't bottleneck it. For comparison, the pair of GTX260's on Hydra showed about 80% increase in average FPS while the GTX260/GTX285 was actually a hair slower.

Once again, it just doesn't seem like Hydra really adds any value to the situation. If you already have a GTX260, Hydra can get you the same performance by adding another GTX260 as by adding a GTX285 - that choice seems obvious. If you already have a GTX285, then you can add a GTX260, but in addition to the new card being slower itself, you'll also have less improvement due to it being a different card. So you can add up to 50% of a GTX260's power, or you can add up to 80% of a GTX285's power. Adding another GTX285 should be a decent bit faster, and also works with plain old SLI, meaning you don't even need Hydra (and SLI seems to scale better than Hydra in this case).
 
InvisiBill said:
We have yet to see how exactly what's needed to support new games or how well Lucid will keep up with that. If it takes them three months to get it working every time a new game comes out, I don't think I'm all that interested.
Click to expand...
That's a huge question there.
 
http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/44664-lucidlogix-preps-hydra-soc-for-early-2010-launch

About the only thing of interest really -

"TG Daily: Can you tell us a little about Lucid's relationship with hardware vendors?

Kimberly Stowe: "Other vendors are in different stages of development using the Lucid Hydra technology. The vendors will announce [products] based upon their marketing plans and we are expecting it to be soon."

Excited to see who else is implementing Lucid technology.
 
Sabrewulf... said:
http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/44664-lucidlogix-preps-hydra-soc-for-early-2010-launch

About the only thing of interest really -

"TG Daily: Can you tell us a little about Lucid's relationship with hardware vendors?

Kimberly Stowe: "Other vendors are in different stages of development using the Lucid Hydra technology. The vendors will announce [products] based upon their marketing plans and we are expecting it to be soon."

Excited to see who else is implementing Lucid technology.
Click to expand...

that was a question dodge. There could be no one else developing anything with lucid or there could be 2-3 boards from every manufacturer. Until we get announcements from them I will assume they aren't touching lucid.
 
InvisiBill said:
I still tend to agree with vengence here. Would you be willing to pay an extra $50 on your motherboard to have the ability to get an extra 15%? 10% more scaling over regular CF/SLI? If you're only getting a 15% performance boost by throwing an old ATI card in with your Nvidia, wouldn't you rather just get another Nvidia (even if it's slower than the ATI) and just do regular SLI, which should result in more net gain? Or if you get a 5870, do you really want to keep your loud, power-sucking GTX280 installed just to get an extra 15%? I doubt it would support the vendor-specific features like PhysX and Eyefinity on the other's cards - otherwise they'd already be running each other's stuff - so it would be doing each vendor's tricks on their own cards. Essentially running Eyefinity on the ATI card and using the Nvidia as an add-in PhysX card. Which is already possible, excluding driver lockouts.

I do still think this is great technology and hopefully it will lead to better features and more competition. However, it seems to be aimed at either reusing old cards or getting more performance out of high-end multi-card setups. These benchmarks seem to show that it's not all that great at either one though. Buying a new, expensive motherboard to get a 15% boost from an old card? That doesn't sound like a great value for the budget-minded folks. 50-80% scaling with what's essentially an SLI setup? That doesn't sound like massive improvements that will crush native SLI. Don't forget that you also now have another middleman between your video card and your game. We have yet to see how exactly what's needed to support new games or how well Lucid will keep up with that. If it takes them three months to get it working every time a new game comes out, I don't think I'm all that interested.

One other thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that it seems to be limited to two cards. This could simply be a limit of the demo version, though the (very simple) diagram seems to imply that it's limited to 2x x16 (or 4x x8). I believe that current high-end cards are very slightly limited by x8, so I would expect this to be a bigger issue by the time Hydra is actually available at retail and going forward. To take full advantage of four new cards, will we need a Hydra chip for each pair, plus a third Hydra to connect those pairs together?




They don't need to yet, as there's still no product available to consumers. I'm willing to bet they're working on it already, and its appearance will be based upon the arrival and performance of the retail product. If the retail product is noticeably more expensive with results similar to these, I wouldn't bother blocking it, as it doesn't seem to add a whole lot of value but the act of blocking it would have massive PR costs.




Doubling the framerate would require removing all bottlenecks that would exist up to twice the current framerate. Depending on the details of the hardware and software, it may be one or many components that are limiting it. The biggest bottleneck with 3D games is the GPU. In some cases, the amount of data the CPU can push to the GPU can also be a bottleneck. You don't need to double the performance of every component, you just need to upgrade each component that interferes with doubling the framerate to a level that supports double the framerate. For example, you might need to upgrade your 3GHz CPU to 4GHz (just for the sake of easy math) to be able to push enough data to the new GPU. This is only a 33% increase, and implies that a 2GHz CPU would be enough to handle the previous framerate.

http://www.benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/GTX 285 Tri Sli Analysis/P5.html shows a 90% increase in FPS with SLI GTX285's in CoJ. That's on a QX9650 @ 4.2GHz rather than an i7. While it's very possible that the rest of the system is limiting the demo Hydra, it should be easy to put it in a system where that wouldn't bottleneck it. For comparison, the pair of GTX260's on Hydra showed about 80% increase in average FPS while the GTX260/GTX285 was actually a hair slower.

Once again, it just doesn't seem like Hydra really adds any value to the situation. If you already have a GTX260, Hydra can get you the same performance by adding another GTX260 as by adding a GTX285 - that choice seems obvious. If you already have a GTX285, then you can add a GTX260, but in addition to the new card being slower itself, you'll also have less improvement due to it being a different card. So you can add up to 50% of a GTX260's power, or you can add up to 80% of a GTX285's power. Adding another GTX285 should be a decent bit faster, and also works with plain old SLI, meaning you don't even need Hydra (and SLI seems to scale better than Hydra in this case).
Click to expand...

Some of the more interesting scaling happened when an ATI card was added to the Nvidia card on the techreport preview - the combination of the two was faster than an ATI x-fire or Nvidia SLI setup where the cards were matched to themselves separately. Probably as the hydra was able to load the two different GPU types with what they did best. With x-fire or SLI, you are limited by whatever your bottleneck on your video card is - ie memory bandwidth, shader power etc. so you just double it along with everything else, but it's still your limitation. With hydra, (just an example) you can have one card with a ton of memory bandwidth and have it do operations that make use of that and a 2nd card with a ton of shader power that can do that, and you address your bottlenecks instead of just doubling the speed of your bottleneck (along with everything else) so that it's still the bottleneck. I like the technology but I don't think it's best use is going to be pairing 2 identical cards or a newer gen card with an older gen card - it's going to really shine when pairing cards that do different things well or when you know what your limitation is in a particular application and you can cheaply add another card that just eliminates that bottleneck instead of doubling everything else as well, especially if unnecessary...
 
You sure that was obtained without turning off various performance reducing image enhancing features the cards did not have in common, or performed in a different way?
 
bobzdar said:
Some of the more interesting scaling happened when an ATI card was added to the Nvidia card on the techreport preview - the combination of the two was faster than an ATI x-fire or Nvidia SLI setup where the cards were matched to themselves separately. Probably as the hydra was able to load the two different GPU types with what they did best. With x-fire or SLI, you are limited by whatever your bottleneck on your video card is - ie memory bandwidth, shader power etc. so you just double it along with everything else, but it's still your limitation. With hydra, (just an example) you can have one card with a ton of memory bandwidth and have it do operations that make use of that and a 2nd card with a ton of shader power that can do that, and you address your bottlenecks instead of just doubling the speed of your bottleneck (along with everything else) so that it's still the bottleneck. I like the technology but I don't think it's best use is going to be pairing 2 identical cards or a newer gen card with an older gen card - it's going to really shine when pairing cards that do different things well or when you know what your limitation is in a particular application and you can cheaply add another card that just eliminates that bottleneck instead of doubling everything else as well, especially if unnecessary...
Click to expand...

I have been following the Hydra story in the hope that this exact scenario might become reality. I have no idea if it will but, for a gamer it's a "best of both worlds" wet dream.

What will be the color of all future fanboy's? Why, two tone red & green, of course.
 
According to VR-Zone (and deeper sorces...) http://vr-zone.com/forums/510362/msi-big-bang-fuzion-hydra-200-specs-and-games-compatibility-list.html

msi-fuzion.jpg


Specifications:

Processor Support
Intel Core i7 and Core i5 (Lynnfeld & Clarkdale) processor LGA1156

Base Clock
133 MHz

Chipset
Intel P55 / Lucid Hydra 200 chipset

Memory Support
4 DDR3 DIMMs support DDR3 2133 *(OC)/ 2000 *(OC)/ 1800 *(OC)/1600 *(OC)/ 1333/ 1066 DRAM (16GB Max)
Supports Dual-Channel mode

LAN
Supports Dual LAN (10/100/1000) by Realtek RTL8111DL

IEEE 1394
Chip integrated by VIA VT6315N
Transfer rate up to 400Mbps

Audio
QuantumWaveTM Audio Card
Creative EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0
THX TruStudio PCTM
Creative ALchemy
7.1 Channel High Defnition Audio Codec with jack sensing
Realtek ALC889
Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
Supports1x S/PDIF out header
Supports Coaxial/Optical S/PDIF out ports on rear

IDE
1 IDE port by Jmicron JMB363
Supports Ultra DMA 66/100/133 mode
Supports PIO, Bus Master operation mode

SATA
6 SATAII (SATA1~6) ports by Intel P55
4 SATAII (SATA7/ 8/ 9/ 10) ports by two JMicron JMB322
2 ESATA/ USB Combo port (back panel) by Jmicron JMB362
Supports storage and data transfers at up to 3 Gb/s

RAID
SATA1~6 support Intel Matrix Storage Technology (AHCI/ RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10) by Intel P55
Hardware RAID
SATA7 & SATA8 support RAID 0/ 1 & JBOD mode by 1st Jmicron JMB322
SATA9 & SATA10 support RAID 0/ 1 & JBOD mode by 2nd Jmicron JMB322

Connectors
Back panel
- 1 PS/2 keyboard port
- 1 PS/2 mouse port
- 1 D-LED3 panel connector (optional)
- 8 USB 2.0 ports
- 1 IEEE 1394 port
- 2 ESATA/ USB Combo port
- 2 LAN ports
On-Board
- 2 USB 2.0 connectors
- 1 IEEE 1394 connector
- 1 Chassis Intrusion connector
- 1 TPM Module connector (optional)
- 1 Green Power Genie connector (optional)
- 1 Over-Voltage switch & 1 set voltage check point
- 1 Power button
- 1 Reset button
- 1 Green Power button
- 1 Clear CMOS button
- 1 OC Genie button
- 1 CPU Phase LED panel
Slots
3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2/ PCI_E4/ PCI_E5 will be x16/ x16/ x0 or x16/ x8/ x8
2 PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
- Only PCI_E1 supports installing the Realtek Audio card
2 PCI 2.2 slots, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface
Form Factor
ATX (30.5cm X 24.4 cm)


Hardware and Software Support

The supporting list for current HYDRA driver (version 1.3.105) are described in this section.
HYDRA driver will be updated to support more new OS, GPUs and display drivers.
Therefore, it may be changed depand on the latest version of the driver.

Supported Operating Systems
Microsoft Windows Vista (SP2) 32-bit and 64-bit
- Support dual NVIDIA graphic cards
- Support dual ATI graphic cards
Microsoft Windows 7 RTM OS 32-bit and 64-bit
- Support dual mixture of NVIDIA and ATI graphic cards
- Support dual NVIDIA graphic cards
- Support dual ATI graphic cards
Microsoft Windows Editions include:
- Windows Vista Home Basic
- Windows Vista Home Premium
- Windows Vista Business
- Windows Vista Enterprise Edition
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- Windows 7 (RTM) Home Premium
- Windows 7 (RTM) Professional
- Windows 7 (RTM) Ultimate
Supported graphic libraries
DirectX 9
DirectX 10

Supported GPUs and display drivers
NVIDIA
- GPUs G90/G200 series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version (GTX295 is not supported)
- NVIDIA display drivers: 185.85, 186.18, 190.38, 190.62, 191.07
AMD/ATI
- GPUs HD4XXX series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version (HD4870x2 is not supported)
- ATI/AMD display drivers: Catalyst 9.7 and up
Multi vendor
- Operating system: Windows 7 only (due to native limitations of other Windows versions)
- GPUs: NVIDIA G90/G200 series, AMD/ATI HD4xxx Series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version
- Display drivers: NVIDIA 185.85, 186.18, 190.38, 190.62, 191.07 / AMD/ATI Catalyst 9.7 and up

Important
The HYDRA driver only support up to 2 graphic cards in this version. The future version will support up to 3 graphic cards. Then you only need to update the driver.

Games qualifed
These games are verified with HYDRA driver 1.3.105 by Lucid. The games that are highlights (Bold) are common to all confgurations.

N-Mode (dual NVIDIA graphic cards)

007 Quantum of Solace
3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Age of Empires III
Batman Arkham Asylum (including benchmark)
Battlefield 2
BioShock (DX10 & DX9)
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box
C&C3 Kane's Wrath
C&C3 Tiberium wars
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
Call of Juarez Bound In Blood
Call of Juarez (DX10 & DX9) (including benchmark)
Civilization IV
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV Colonization
Civilization IV Warlords
Code of Honor 3
Company of Heroes ( including benchmark)
Dead Space
Death to Spies
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Fallout3
FIFA09
Frontlines Fuel of War
Gears of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfghter 2
Half Life 2
Half Life 2 episode one
Half Life 2 episode two
Jericho
King's Bounty the Legend
Kung Fu Panda
Left 4 Dead
Lego Indiana Jones
Lost Planet - Extreme Condition DX9
Lord of The Rings Midd e Earth
Madagascar 2
Mass Efect
Medieval II: TotalWar
Monsters vs Aliens
NBA 2K9
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
P.E.S. (Pro Evolution Succer)
Portal
Pure
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Spore
Stormrise (including benchmark)
Street fghter 4 (Including benchmark)
Supreme Commander (including benchmark)
Team Fortress 2
The Godfather II
The Witcher Enhanced Edition
Time Shift
TomClancy's: EndWar
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Transfomers2
Unreal Tournament 3
Velvet Assassin
Virtua tennis 2009
Wall-E
Wheelman
Wolfenstein
World In Confict (including Benchmark)
X-Man Origin Wolverine

A-Mode (dual ATI graphic cards)

007 Quantum of Solace
3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Age of Empires III
Battlefeld 2
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box
C&C3 Kane's Wrath
C&C3 Tiberium wars
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
Call of Juarez Bound In Blood
Call of Juarez (DX10 & DX9) (including benchmark)
Civilization IV
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV Colonization
Civilization IV Warlords
Company of Heroes (including benchmark)
Dead Space
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Fallout3
FIFA09
Frontlines Fuel of War
Gears of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfghter 2
Half Life 2
Half Life 2 episode one
Half Life 2 episode two
Jericho
King's Bounty the Legend
Kung Fu Panda
Left 4 Dead
Lego Indiana Jones
Lord of The Rings Middle Earth
Madagascar 2
Mass Efect
Monsters vs Aliens
NecroVision
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
P.E.S. (Pro Evolution Succer)
Portal
Pure
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky
SIMS 2 Double Deluxe
Spore
Stormrise (including benchmark)
Street fghter 4 (including benchmark)
Supreme Commander (including benchmark)
Team Fortress 2
The Godfather II
Tom Clancy's: EndWar
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Transformers2
Virtua tennis 2009
Wall-E
Wanted Weapons of Fate
Wolfenstein
World In Confict (includinq benchmark)
X-Man Origin Wolverine

X-Mode (dual mixture of NVIDIA and ATI graphic cards)

3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Batman Arkham Asylum (including benchmark)
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising


Hardware Setup
Installing the Graphic Cards
HYDRA allows you to fexibility use diferent combinations of GPUs from AMD/ATI and NVIDIA, and do not need cables to connect the graphic cards (The current version only supports windows 7). Please follow the steps below to install the graphic cards.
- Turn of your computer and disconnect the power cord.
- Open and remove the case of the computer.
- Find and locate the PCI-E x16 slots.
- Remove the bracket which may obstruct the installed PCI-E slots.
- Gently but firmly install the graphic cards to the PCI-E x16 slots and secure the card brackets with screws.
- Replace and secure the case. Reconnect the power cord to the computer.
Connecting the monitor
- After you have installed graphic cards, connect the monitor to the monitor port on the first graphic card

Important
If you use NVIDIA + ATI GPUs combination, it is recommended installing the NVIDIA graphic card to the first PCI-E x16 slot.

Using PhysX/Physics with 3rd GPU
The HYDRA driver enables to use a 3rd GPU card installed on the system for PhysX/Physics calculation.
In order to active this feature:
- A 3rd GPU should be installed on the available PCI-E slot.
- The 3rd GPU can be a much lower performance that the other 2 GPUs (for example, 2x GTX260 for graphic enhancement and 1x GT9600 for PhysX/Physics).


So there it is, nice board, to bad no USB 3.0 support. :(
 
Sabrewulf... said:
According to VR-Zone (and deeper sorces...) http://vr-zone.com/forums/510362/msi-big-bang-fuzion-hydra-200-specs-and-games-compatibility-list.html

msi-fuzion.jpg


Specifications:

Processor Support
Intel Core i7 and Core i5 (Lynnfeld & Clarkdale) processor LGA1156

Base Clock
133 MHz

Chipset
Intel P55 / Lucid Hydra 200 chipset

Memory Support
4 DDR3 DIMMs support DDR3 2133 *(OC)/ 2000 *(OC)/ 1800 *(OC)/1600 *(OC)/ 1333/ 1066 DRAM (16GB Max)
Supports Dual-Channel mode

LAN
Supports Dual LAN (10/100/1000) by Realtek RTL8111DL

IEEE 1394
Chip integrated by VIA VT6315N
Transfer rate up to 400Mbps

Audio
QuantumWaveTM Audio Card
Creative EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0
THX TruStudio PCTM
Creative ALchemy
7.1 Channel High Defnition Audio Codec with jack sensing
Realtek ALC889
Compliant with Azalia 1.0 Spec
Supports1x S/PDIF out header
Supports Coaxial/Optical S/PDIF out ports on rear

IDE
1 IDE port by Jmicron JMB363
Supports Ultra DMA 66/100/133 mode
Supports PIO, Bus Master operation mode

SATA
6 SATAII (SATA1~6) ports by Intel P55
4 SATAII (SATA7/ 8/ 9/ 10) ports by two JMicron JMB322
2 ESATA/ USB Combo port (back panel) by Jmicron JMB362
Supports storage and data transfers at up to 3 Gb/s

RAID
SATA1~6 support Intel Matrix Storage Technology (AHCI/ RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10) by Intel P55
Hardware RAID
SATA7 & SATA8 support RAID 0/ 1 & JBOD mode by 1st Jmicron JMB322
SATA9 & SATA10 support RAID 0/ 1 & JBOD mode by 2nd Jmicron JMB322

Connectors
Back panel
- 1 PS/2 keyboard port
- 1 PS/2 mouse port
- 1 D-LED3 panel connector (optional)
- 8 USB 2.0 ports
- 1 IEEE 1394 port
- 2 ESATA/ USB Combo port
- 2 LAN ports
On-Board
- 2 USB 2.0 connectors
- 1 IEEE 1394 connector
- 1 Chassis Intrusion connector
- 1 TPM Module connector (optional)
- 1 Green Power Genie connector (optional)
- 1 Over-Voltage switch & 1 set voltage check point
- 1 Power button
- 1 Reset button
- 1 Green Power button
- 1 Clear CMOS button
- 1 OC Genie button
- 1 CPU Phase LED panel
Slots
3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2/ PCI_E4/ PCI_E5 will be x16/ x16/ x0 or x16/ x8/ x8
2 PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
- Only PCI_E1 supports installing the Realtek Audio card
2 PCI 2.2 slots, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface
Form Factor
ATX (30.5cm X 24.4 cm)


Hardware and Software Support

The supporting list for current HYDRA driver (version 1.3.105) are described in this section.
HYDRA driver will be updated to support more new OS, GPUs and display drivers.
Therefore, it may be changed depand on the latest version of the driver.

Supported Operating Systems
Microsoft Windows Vista (SP2) 32-bit and 64-bit
- Support dual NVIDIA graphic cards
- Support dual ATI graphic cards
Microsoft Windows 7 RTM OS 32-bit and 64-bit
- Support dual mixture of NVIDIA and ATI graphic cards
- Support dual NVIDIA graphic cards
- Support dual ATI graphic cards
Microsoft Windows Editions include:
- Windows Vista Home Basic
- Windows Vista Home Premium
- Windows Vista Business
- Windows Vista Enterprise Edition
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- Windows 7 (RTM) Home Premium
- Windows 7 (RTM) Professional
- Windows 7 (RTM) Ultimate
Supported graphic libraries
DirectX 9
DirectX 10

Supported GPUs and display drivers
NVIDIA
- GPUs G90/G200 series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version (GTX295 is not supported)
- NVIDIA display drivers: 185.85, 186.18, 190.38, 190.62, 191.07
AMD/ATI
- GPUs HD4XXX series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version (HD4870x2 is not supported)
- ATI/AMD display drivers: Catalyst 9.7 and up
Multi vendor
- Operating system: Windows 7 only (due to native limitations of other Windows versions)
- GPUs: NVIDIA G90/G200 series, AMD/ATI HD4xxx Series, Single core only, no Dual core GPU support in this version
- Display drivers: NVIDIA 185.85, 186.18, 190.38, 190.62, 191.07 / AMD/ATI Catalyst 9.7 and up

Important
The HYDRA driver only support up to 2 graphic cards in this version. The future version will support up to 3 graphic cards. Then you only need to update the driver.

Games qualifed
These games are verified with HYDRA driver 1.3.105 by Lucid. The games that are highlights (Bold) are common to all confgurations.

N-Mode (dual NVIDIA graphic cards)

007 Quantum of Solace
3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Age of Empires III
Batman Arkham Asylum (including benchmark)
Battlefield 2
BioShock (DX10 & DX9)
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box
C&C3 Kane's Wrath
C&C3 Tiberium wars
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
Call of Juarez Bound In Blood
Call of Juarez (DX10 & DX9) (including benchmark)
Civilization IV
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV Colonization
Civilization IV Warlords
Code of Honor 3
Company of Heroes ( including benchmark)
Dead Space
Death to Spies
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Fallout3
FIFA09
Frontlines Fuel of War
Gears of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfghter 2
Half Life 2
Half Life 2 episode one
Half Life 2 episode two
Jericho
King's Bounty the Legend
Kung Fu Panda
Left 4 Dead
Lego Indiana Jones
Lost Planet - Extreme Condition DX9
Lord of The Rings Midd e Earth
Madagascar 2
Mass Efect
Medieval II: TotalWar
Monsters vs Aliens
NBA 2K9
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
P.E.S. (Pro Evolution Succer)
Portal
Pure
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Spore
Stormrise (including benchmark)
Street fghter 4 (Including benchmark)
Supreme Commander (including benchmark)
Team Fortress 2
The Godfather II
The Witcher Enhanced Edition
Time Shift
TomClancy's: EndWar
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Transfomers2
Unreal Tournament 3
Velvet Assassin
Virtua tennis 2009
Wall-E
Wheelman
Wolfenstein
World In Confict (including Benchmark)
X-Man Origin Wolverine

A-Mode (dual ATI graphic cards)

007 Quantum of Solace
3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Age of Empires III
Battlefeld 2
Brothers in Arms Hells Highway
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box
C&C3 Kane's Wrath
C&C3 Tiberium wars
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
Call of Juarez Bound In Blood
Call of Juarez (DX10 & DX9) (including benchmark)
Civilization IV
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV Colonization
Civilization IV Warlords
Company of Heroes (including benchmark)
Dead Space
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Fallout3
FIFA09
Frontlines Fuel of War
Gears of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfghter 2
Half Life 2
Half Life 2 episode one
Half Life 2 episode two
Jericho
King's Bounty the Legend
Kung Fu Panda
Left 4 Dead
Lego Indiana Jones
Lord of The Rings Middle Earth
Madagascar 2
Mass Efect
Monsters vs Aliens
NecroVision
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
P.E.S. (Pro Evolution Succer)
Portal
Pure
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky
SIMS 2 Double Deluxe
Spore
Stormrise (including benchmark)
Street fghter 4 (including benchmark)
Supreme Commander (including benchmark)
Team Fortress 2
The Godfather II
Tom Clancy's: EndWar
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Transformers2
Virtua tennis 2009
Wall-E
Wanted Weapons of Fate
Wolfenstein
World In Confict (includinq benchmark)
X-Man Origin Wolverine

X-Mode (dual mixture of NVIDIA and ATI graphic cards)

3DMark Vantage
3DMark06
Batman Arkham Asylum (including benchmark)
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty World At War
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising


Hardware Setup
Installing the Graphic Cards
HYDRA allows you to fexibility use diferent combinations of GPUs from AMD/ATI and NVIDIA, and do not need cables to connect the graphic cards (The current version only supports windows 7). Please follow the steps below to install the graphic cards.
- Turn of your computer and disconnect the power cord.
- Open and remove the case of the computer.
- Find and locate the PCI-E x16 slots.
- Remove the bracket which may obstruct the installed PCI-E slots.
- Gently but firmly install the graphic cards to the PCI-E x16 slots and secure the card brackets with screws.
- Replace and secure the case. Reconnect the power cord to the computer.
Connecting the monitor
- After you have installed graphic cards, connect the monitor to the monitor port on the first graphic card

Important
If you use NVIDIA + ATI GPUs combination, it is recommended installing the NVIDIA graphic card to the first PCI-E x16 slot.

Using PhysX/Physics with 3rd GPU
The HYDRA driver enables to use a 3rd GPU card installed on the system for PhysX/Physics calculation.
In order to active this feature:
- A 3rd GPU should be installed on the available PCI-E slot.
- The 3rd GPU can be a much lower performance that the other 2 GPUs (for example, 2x GTX260 for graphic enhancement and 1x GT9600 for PhysX/Physics).


So there it is, nice board, to bad no USB 3.0 support. :(
Click to expand...

Huh. Disappointing number of games that support X-Mode, but surely that will improve should this really take off.

Still wondering when a Socket 1366 mobo will be announced. :rolleyes:
 
I agree with you, but did you really have to quote that whole thing? ;)
 
Well that list right there pretty much sums up the fail. A lot of people were hoping this would eliminate the need for SLI profiles and such. Looks like its just going to make everything WORSE, and it doesn't even list support for likely the most played game in the world right now (World of Warcraft). Plus you can't use dual GPU card, it doesn't support ATI 5xxx, blah blah blah. Now Lucid will be on the hook for this working only with specific drivers and specific games. So for the target market (enthusiasts) this is borderline useless when you won't be able to always use the latest drivers and won't likely work with the latest games right out of the box.
 
No support for CoD :MW2? No support for Arma?No support for Crysis? What's the point of having support for Half life 2 and not getting the major demanding games supported?
 
It would have better served the purpose by clipping his post instead of quoting the entire thing.
 
Yeah so I went ahead and upgraded. I dunno what happened here exactly with the Hydra, but it was a disappointment. I am very happy with the new setup.
 
vengence said:
No support for CoD :MW2? No support for Arma?No support for Crysis? What's the point of having support for Half life 2 and not getting the major demanding games supported?
Click to expand...

What the heck is up with that. If you are going to showcase some new tech you want to show how it smacks down biggest games out there. I makes me wonder how buggy it is if they wont throw those names up in the stats. :(
 
http://hardocp.com/news/2009/12/09/msi_big_bangin_lucid_hydra/

In the man's hands at last, hope it doesn't terribly disappoint when tested.

Sure the GFX card and game support is a bit weak at the moment, but we must note, these are not the final shipping drivers and we won't see how they change things for some time yet.

Another thing that has soured me on this tech is that I was under the impression that the game/driver profiling would not be necessary with Hydra, but unfortunately it seems that it is. :( More, new game comes out and have to wait for driver updates to play it with maximum performance (or at all) crap.


Fingers crossed...
 
If it's a good price (no more or similar to the Trinergy version that guru3d like so much) and it has Crossfire support as well as Hydra scaling, then I think it could be a positive step forward for multi GPU. They've already shown that sometimes Hydra is faster, sometimes Crossfire is faster. If having both on the same board means decent performance scaling across a wider range of games then I don't see how buyers can lose out.
 
FTA:


"The HYDRA engine scales performance of multi-GPU configuration from any single GPU vendor and will scale relative to their individual performance (the GPUs do not need to be identical). The intertesting thing there is "from any single GPU vendor." Then it does go on to document some "X-Mode"/"Multi vendor" GPU configurations using both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs avaible in Windows 7 only. You have to use NVIDIA G90/G200 GPUs with AMD HD4XXX series of GPUs. No support beyond that currently, and quite frankly I am going to suggest you will not see much support beyond that. On the final brown colored page you will note "Game Qualified" games. Under X-Mode we see only 5 actual games tested to support Lucic Hydra usage models"

Cmon Kyle you gotta at least go into it with an open mind.
 
butterfliesrpretty said:
Cmon Kyle you gotta at least go into it with an open mind.
Click to expand...

I am sure this will get a fair test. I would much rather see [H] be honest about hardware limitations than act like many review sites and paint a happy picture about most new technologies. Hydra has some backbreaking limitations right now, and the hardware delivered does not do what was originally promised.
 
IanM said:
MSI Big Bang XPower has been announced with what may be an ideal spec: X58 + CF + SLI + SATA 6 Gb/s + USB 3.0 See VR-Zone: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-confidential-mainboard-exposed--xpower/8361.html If MSI can keep the price within $20-$30 of the equivalent NF200 boards the presence of SLI & CF may make this one worth a shot.
Click to expand...

So it's an EVGA classified with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s + hydra. The X58 classified is at 360$ ATM. USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s is nice, I've really got no interest in the hydra. EVGA has steller support. Will be interesting to see how they price it, but based on the price of their last board, I wouldn't expect too much. :(
 
ocellaris said:
I am sure this will get a fair test. I would much rather see [H] be honest about hardware limitations than act like many review sites and paint a happy picture about most new technologies. Hydra has some backbreaking limitations right now, and the hardware delivered does not do what was originally promised.
Click to expand...

We will spend the time and money on looking into it when it looks like it will be more than a waste of our time. Just because we don't have a review up, does not mean we are ignorant about the hardware. We never covered RAMBUS either, but we knew it made no difference to our readers and we said so. That is what I am saying here now. Maybe it will change, but I don't think so.
 
From the benchmarks I have seen and what I have read it really is worthless. Don't get me wrong, the idea is awesome, but the execution is pure fail. To be honest I would like to know who got paid off/blown at MSI to give the green light to it.

I agree with Kyle, I would much rather read a review about a product that actually delivers. No reason to read through 8 pages just to come to the same conclusion as everyone else: fail.
 
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