14 DAY TRIAL // We've been talking about LucidLogix's HYDRA chip for some time, but it looks like the company has finally decided to up the ante and officially introduce its new HYDRA 200. The new solution has been specifically designed to bring multi-GPU computing to the masses, according to the company, as it allows motherboard and graphics card manufacturers to provide their customers with the flexibility of using different combinations of GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA, in both notebooks and desktop PCs. Heaving reached its second generation, the new HYDRA 200 SoC is expected to revolutionize the graphics market, providing consumers with a new way to boost graphics performance.
“We’ve further refined our HYDRA engine and made it faster and more flexible, allowing for a near limitless combination of GPU’s,” said Lucid’s vice president of research and development, David Belz. “HYDRA 200 allows the consumer to get more ‘bang for their GPU buck’ by extending the life of their current GPU investment, providing even faster graphics performance and later upgrading their system with whatever card they choose.”
Designed using a 65nm process technology, the new SoC is rated at a low power use of 6W, while offering support for systems using dual, triple or quad GPU combinations. The chip enables universal GPU, CPU and chipset support and is available in a small footprint, being ideal for integration on the latest motherboards. The new solution, according to LucidLogix, supports Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system environments and DirectX 9c and 10.1 API standards, as well as the new DirectX 11 API.
The company announced three new models, designed on its new HYDRA 200 solution, including the LT22012, LT22114 and LT24102. From the three, the LT24102 is the only one that supports up to 4 GPUs at the same time, connected in a 4x8 configuration.