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MSI Big bang Fuzion (Lucid Hydra) review -
Utilizing Lucid's Hydra 200 Silicon
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Utilizing Lucid's Hydra 200 Silicon
It's time to check a thing or two out about the Hydra 200 chip used on this motherboard. Lucid's Hydra chip has been a topic of interest for many of us for a long time now and MSI Big Bang Fuzion offers the first real consumer implementation of that chip.
Can Lucid really design a chip that allows GPU load-balancing that works as smoothly as SLI and CrossFire and then allow mixing GPUs of different types? It's a daunting task for any company and over the time we got to spend with the Big Bang Fuzion, one thing became abundantly clear, it's not at all as easy as Lucid would like to make us believe. First let's have a quick chat about the technology.
The Lucid Hydra 200 chip functions as a load balancer in between two (and in the future three) GPUs. Load balancing requires some sort of computational power, and as such the Hyrda chip includes a RISC core (300MHz if I am correct) based on the Tensilica Diamond architecture. That core comes with with 64K of instruction memory and 32K of data memory, both on-chip. We learned that there are three versions of the Hydra 200 available. The only real difference between the chips are the number of PCIe lanes.
As such the low-end chip has just one x8 connection to the CPU/PCIe controller and two x8 connections to GPUs. Then the midrange LT22102 has a x16 connection to the CPU and two x16 connections for GPUs. And the highest end solution, the one being used on the MSI board, has a x16 to the CPU and then a configurable pair of x16s to GPUs. Configurable in the sense that you can operate this controller in 4 x8 mode, 1 x16 + 2 x8 or 2 x16.
The chip itself is outsourced and manufactured by TSMC on a 65-nm fabrication node, Lucid's Hydra 200 power draw is humble at a rated 6W TDP.
After both graphics cards (whether that is ATI or NVIDIA or a combo of them) have been seated you'll need to install the Hydra software driver. This driver suite will takeover and activate the Hydra 200 chip, which will now function as load balancer in-between the two cards, allowing them to (currently) run a small selection DX9 and DX10 games.
Hydra 200 accomplishes this task by catching calls from the graphics API (DirectX), vigorously dividing up the workload, and then assigning a portion of the work required to draw each frame to one of the GPUs. The Hydra 200 chip will then combine the data into an end-result sending it off to to the display.
Lucid Hydra can work in Three modes/configurations:
- X-Mode: A Radeon 4000 or newer and GeForce series G90/G200 graphics card
- N mode: Two GeForce series G90/G200 graphics cards
- R mode: Two Radeon 4000 or newer graphics cards
The biggest downside of the Hydra 200 chip is that it will require game profiles and driver optimizations to allow the games to work. As such there are restrictions, a whole lot of them really:
- Current supported cards: Radeon Series 4000/5000
- Current Supported cards: GeForce 9000 and GTX 200 series
- Only Catalyst drivers 9.7 and upwards supported
- Limited NVIDIA ForceWare support: 191.07 was the latest driver supported
- Very important - mixing NVIDIA and ATI GPUs will require Windows 7 -- Vista will not work.
- You need at least Windows Vista in order to create a single vendor Multi-GPU setup (Radeon/Radeon).
- Hydra will NOT work with cards that have two GPUs (Radeon X2 / GeForce GTX 295 etc).
So we see a lot of vendor dependency in order to get independent Multi-GPU vendor support.
Next to that there is, as we mentioned, driver profiles. Now I know the Lucid team is working hard on driver support, currently however the one mode everybody is after is the X-Mode (two vendor cards) and these are the only titles supported:
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
In N or R mode things are way better supported though. These games are verified with HYDRA driver 1.3.105 by Lucid. The games that are highlighted (Bold) are common to all configurations.
| 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 Warfighter 2 Half Life 2 Half Life 2 episode one Half Life 2 episode two Jericho |
Kung Fu Panda Left 4 Dead Lego Indiana Jones Lost Planet - Extreme Condition DX9 Lord of The Rings Middle Earth Madagascar 2 Mass Efect Medieval II: TotalWar Monsters vs Aliens NBA 2K9 Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising P.E.S. (Pro Evolution Soccer) Portal Pure Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Spore Stormrise (including benchmark) Street fighter 4 (Including benchmark) Supreme Commander (including benchmark) Team Fortress 2 The Godfather II The Witcher Enhanced Edition Time Shift Tom Clancy's: EndWar Tomb Raider: Underworld Transfomers2 Unreal Tournament 3 Velvet Assassin Virtua tennis 2009 Wall-E Wheelman Wolfenstein World In Conflict (including Benchmark) X-Man Origin Wolverine |
MSI Big Bang Z77 Mpower review
Today we test the Z77 MPower version, which as you'll notice is a pleasant upgrade from their Z77A-GD65 motherboard -- yet with an improved CPU VRM, more friendly warranties and a new black and yellow color-scheme which merges the Lightning series graphics cards and these motherboards a little closer together. Have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower motherboard. You just have to be impressed by the overall looks ...
MSI Big Bang P67 Marshal review
Powered by Intel's P67 chipset, the MSI Big Bang Marhal comes with MSI's latest Military Class II design that makes use of a 24 phase (!) power SFC choke setup alongside the best quality Hi-c CAP's and Japanese made solid capacitors. Added to the mix for additional PCIe lanes is a Hydra chip, which also can be utilized to combine mix and match graphics cards in a multi-GPU setup. The board comes with 24-phase DrMOS power design, voltage monitoring points, an external overclock device called the OC dashboard, that all new EFI BIOS, dual-BIOS selectable with a simple button, and OC genie button that allows you to have say a 2500K processor run at 4200 with the flick of a switch. I'm not done though, we spot integrated audio with SoundBlaster X-Fi application (software) layer, ten SATA ports of which four are based on the all new SATA 6G. Thick heatpipe (passive and thus silent) cooling and more and more. This board is a true hardware enthusiast dream come true, or is it ?
MSI Big Bang X58 XPower review
We test and review the XPower from MSI. Last month Intel added a new processor in the line-up, the ever so strong Core i7 980 Extreme six-core processor. Seriously breathtaking, and to date the fastest consumer processor on the globe with very decent overclock potential as well. That was reason enough for most ODM to make new updates and revisions of the X58 chipset based motherboards, as next top the new processor we also have seen the gradual adoption of features like USB 3.0 and SATA3 6G. MSI is on of the ODMs releasing something really special, today we'll review the Big Bang X58 XPower motherboard. It is chucked full with the latest gadgets and features, it is equipped to make sure you get the very best overclock out of it and heck, even if you can't overclock, flick a button and the motherboard will do the work for you, completely automated.
MSI Big bang Fuzion (Lucid Hydra) review
MSI has yet another motherboard lined up in the P55 motherboard Big Bang series, ready and waiting for you. It's called the 'Fuzion' and comes with that much discussed Lucid Hydra 200 chip. Now the big deal about the Big Bang mainboard is that the board has that Lucid Hydra 200 chip that allows it to support multiple video cards of different brands and models at once. This in theory would allow you get the extra performance from your old video card and your new card even if one is NVIDIA and the other is ATI. The Hydra 200 is a real-time distributed processing engine that acts as an intelligent graphics load balancer.
Today we test the Z77 MPower version, which as you'll notice is a pleasant upgrade from their Z77A-GD65 motherboard -- yet with an improved CPU VRM, more friendly warranties and a new black and yellow color-scheme which merges the Lightning series graphics cards and these motherboards a little closer together. Have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower motherboard. You just have to be impressed by the overall looks ...
MSI Big Bang P67 Marshal review
Powered by Intel's P67 chipset, the MSI Big Bang Marhal comes with MSI's latest Military Class II design that makes use of a 24 phase (!) power SFC choke setup alongside the best quality Hi-c CAP's and Japanese made solid capacitors. Added to the mix for additional PCIe lanes is a Hydra chip, which also can be utilized to combine mix and match graphics cards in a multi-GPU setup. The board comes with 24-phase DrMOS power design, voltage monitoring points, an external overclock device called the OC dashboard, that all new EFI BIOS, dual-BIOS selectable with a simple button, and OC genie button that allows you to have say a 2500K processor run at 4200 with the flick of a switch. I'm not done though, we spot integrated audio with SoundBlaster X-Fi application (software) layer, ten SATA ports of which four are based on the all new SATA 6G. Thick heatpipe (passive and thus silent) cooling and more and more. This board is a true hardware enthusiast dream come true, or is it ?
MSI Big Bang X58 XPower review
We test and review the XPower from MSI. Last month Intel added a new processor in the line-up, the ever so strong Core i7 980 Extreme six-core processor. Seriously breathtaking, and to date the fastest consumer processor on the globe with very decent overclock potential as well. That was reason enough for most ODM to make new updates and revisions of the X58 chipset based motherboards, as next top the new processor we also have seen the gradual adoption of features like USB 3.0 and SATA3 6G. MSI is on of the ODMs releasing something really special, today we'll review the Big Bang X58 XPower motherboard. It is chucked full with the latest gadgets and features, it is equipped to make sure you get the very best overclock out of it and heck, even if you can't overclock, flick a button and the motherboard will do the work for you, completely automated.
MSI Big bang Fuzion (Lucid Hydra) review
MSI has yet another motherboard lined up in the P55 motherboard Big Bang series, ready and waiting for you. It's called the 'Fuzion' and comes with that much discussed Lucid Hydra 200 chip. Now the big deal about the Big Bang mainboard is that the board has that Lucid Hydra 200 chip that allows it to support multiple video cards of different brands and models at once. This in theory would allow you get the extra performance from your old video card and your new card even if one is NVIDIA and the other is ATI. The Hydra 200 is a real-time distributed processing engine that acts as an intelligent graphics load balancer.
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