http://hothardware.com/Article...age=1
I am not a big PC guy but maybe this is new to some who would like to hear about it. Apparently this company makes a motherboard that allows you use different brand GPUs and they work really well together.
Multi-GPU Gaming
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MinisterofDOOM
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Re: Multi-GPU Gaming (RCA)
This board sort of solves the wrong problems. The biggest issues with getting different brand cards (or even two cards of the same brand but of different chipsets) to work together is SOFTWARE. First off, Vista is not capable of running more than one graphics driver at a time. XP and 7 are. But even then, doing so causes all sorts of new problems. People HAVE run ATI and Nvidia cards side by side on "normal" mobos in the past. Generally that's just to get Nvidia Physx acceleration with ATI graphics. But the drivers don't get along at all, and it causes all sorts of new problems in games.
That article was irritatingly vague about the driver situation, but it sounds like this Hydra software does not replace OEM card drivers, it just sits on top of them. In which case, it's not really doing much of value at all. Load-balancing is wonderful, but only if everything else actually works. That's the last step on the ladder. Getting the software to play nice is much more critical to having a reliable multi-card setup.
And Nvidia and ATI both offer multi-card solutions for their own cards, although they are limited (must be the same chipset [so the same series of card most of the time] and must of course be the same brand). But I'd rather deal with the hardware weaknesses of SLI or Crossfire and have a sound software situation than vice-versa.
ATI also appears to be working on a single-card, multi-GPU solution.
That article was irritatingly vague about the driver situation, but it sounds like this Hydra software does not replace OEM card drivers, it just sits on top of them. In which case, it's not really doing much of value at all. Load-balancing is wonderful, but only if everything else actually works. That's the last step on the ladder. Getting the software to play nice is much more critical to having a reliable multi-card setup.
And Nvidia and ATI both offer multi-card solutions for their own cards, although they are limited (must be the same chipset [so the same series of card most of the time] and must of course be the same brand). But I'd rather deal with the hardware weaknesses of SLI or Crossfire and have a sound software situation than vice-versa.
ATI also appears to be working on a single-card, multi-GPU solution.
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s0m3th1ngAZ
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Re: Multi-GPU Gaming (MinisterofDOOM)
Nivida and ATI already have single card Multi GPU cards..ati has the X2 series and NIVIDIA has the GX2 series.
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MinisterofDOOM
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Re: Multi-GPU Gaming (RCA)
Bump because I've been reading more about this lately.
Here's my question: why the hell is this a P55 board? WTF is that crap? It's completely baffling.Multi-GPU gaming on P55 is like putting racing slicks on a stock Metro: not only does the Metro not benefit from the slicks, the slicks can't even be put to their proper use on the Metro.
As soon as MSI releases a proper effing X58-based version of this tech, I'll be interested. But P55 for multi-GPU gaming is stupid. X58 offers native dual 16x PCIE. P55 does not. The Fuzion does essentially enable dual 16x PCIE on a P55 platform thanks to the Hydra tech, but X58 would just make more sense.Plus, P55 is limited to i7 800 series CPUs at the top end. Anyone willing to spend the kind of money this Hydra board pulls in is going to want LGA1366 and i7 920 at minimum. And there are i7 hexacore chips not far off that'll pop right into any existing X58 mobos.AND P55 is limited to dual channel DDR3; X58 supports triple channel.There's really NO REASON to go P55 even with just a single GPU unless you're trying to save money, and spending $350 on a mobo to support multiple multi-hundred-dollar videocards is NOT a moneysaving measure.
Pretty disappointing to see such an interesting idea held back by weird decisionmaking.
EDIT:Tomshardware did some benchmarking.With an ATI 5870 and a GTX 275, performance was generally considerably WORSE than with just the 5870 alone. It looks like the Hydra load balancing can't work miracles, sadly.http://www.tomshardware.com/re....html
Here's my question: why the hell is this a P55 board? WTF is that crap? It's completely baffling.Multi-GPU gaming on P55 is like putting racing slicks on a stock Metro: not only does the Metro not benefit from the slicks, the slicks can't even be put to their proper use on the Metro.
As soon as MSI releases a proper effing X58-based version of this tech, I'll be interested. But P55 for multi-GPU gaming is stupid. X58 offers native dual 16x PCIE. P55 does not. The Fuzion does essentially enable dual 16x PCIE on a P55 platform thanks to the Hydra tech, but X58 would just make more sense.Plus, P55 is limited to i7 800 series CPUs at the top end. Anyone willing to spend the kind of money this Hydra board pulls in is going to want LGA1366 and i7 920 at minimum. And there are i7 hexacore chips not far off that'll pop right into any existing X58 mobos.AND P55 is limited to dual channel DDR3; X58 supports triple channel.There's really NO REASON to go P55 even with just a single GPU unless you're trying to save money, and spending $350 on a mobo to support multiple multi-hundred-dollar videocards is NOT a moneysaving measure.
Pretty disappointing to see such an interesting idea held back by weird decisionmaking.
EDIT:Tomshardware did some benchmarking.With an ATI 5870 and a GTX 275, performance was generally considerably WORSE than with just the 5870 alone. It looks like the Hydra load balancing can't work miracles, sadly.http://www.tomshardware.com/re....html
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MinisterofDOOM
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Re: FN-QR (RCA)
X58 actually came first. Intel started at the top with X58 and LGA1366 then moved down to P55 and LGA1156, and then on to H55 and H-, P-, and Q57.
P55 isn't bad by any means, and does actually offer some advantages over x58 due to its more integrated architecture (it is more power efficient, primarily), but one of X58s biggest strengths is having plenty of PCIe lanes which makes it particularly well suited to multi-GPU setups compared to the other current Intel chipsets. And P55 doesn't support i7 900 series, which is a pretty tough pill to swallow at $350. Most P55 mobos are around the $150 mark, which is another of the platform's strengths.
P55 isn't bad by any means, and does actually offer some advantages over x58 due to its more integrated architecture (it is more power efficient, primarily), but one of X58s biggest strengths is having plenty of PCIe lanes which makes it particularly well suited to multi-GPU setups compared to the other current Intel chipsets. And P55 doesn't support i7 900 series, which is a pretty tough pill to swallow at $350. Most P55 mobos are around the $150 mark, which is another of the platform's strengths.