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Intel puts Lucid Hydra on x58

Mix and match GPUs on Smackover 2
Friday, 19 December 2008, 15:51

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

Update: Other sources tell The Inq that the Smackover II board is not finalized, so the Lucid chip on it is not 100%. They are looking hard at it though.

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Comments
sales rush for stick-on heatsink

Any same manufacturers cards are said to work together aggregated and parallel processing just-like-that? Not so sure that will happen in practice - if they use the same instruction sets it should work.

What about shared memory (eg a graphics process is split between more than one card, so that means that to keep the processing consistent the cards will have to share address space (but they have their own memory per card) or fetch it from another location (ram, the hydra itself?) - or ! duplicate it (hopefully not)....if the hydra will be storing addresses or data for 1+ card, then I'm thinking it will very much be needing a good cooler on it at the least.

It sounds great though - having extra onboard chips to do any processor-type sharing is probably the best way to deal with 'how do we split up processing between multiple *PUs?', for now. Essentially having more chip(set)s or a return to co-processor onboard days.

posted by : hubbly-bubbly, 19 December 2008 Complain about this comment
cool

this is cool. so finally we're going to see working hydra engines? I'm very curious.

I can imagine four Larrabees running together in the future.

posted by : ssj4Gogeta, 20 December 2008 Complain about this comment
wow, a whole four processors?!

Really, can you imagine four processors running together in the future? Never! it's not like there's countless examples already of computers running thousands of Intel CPUs as one machine. Gee you think they might....nah it's just too outlandish...but imagine if they started using the next gen Intel chips in the same way! Or imagine if someone built a small cluster from say 10 dual-CPU server boards and used it as their computer! Imagine if you could get two graphics cards on one motherboard and each of them had two processors!

posted by : awestruck by insider forecasts, 21 December 2008 Complain about this comment
Mr,

awestruck,
Imangine you weren't a F!#N@ jerk (edited for content)...

Lets try to focus on the topic and not rip on each other...

Thanks!

posted by : Justanote, 21 December 2008 Complain about this comment
Mr

Justanote, Lets try to focus on the topic and not rip on each other.

posted by : adhocjock, 23 December 2008 Complain about this comment
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