Lucid Hydra 100

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The Lucid Hydra 100 seems to offer a solution for those who have felt locked into the kinds of motherboards and video cards they can use with their gaming. What exactly is it, and is it really the answer to a gamer's prayers? Keep reading to find out.

  

Dual video cards were first developed by 3DFX. nVidia later acquired 3DFX and then used their work to create what is now known as nVidia’s SLI technology. ATI didn’t sit back and let nVidia do this without making their own, and thus, Crossfire was born.

SLI and Crossfire are made to run multiple graphics cards together to provide faster game play. There aren’t many more reasons other than gaming that one would need multiple video card systems. The problem is that each company’s graphics cards only work with certain hardware. nVidia’s SLI only works with nVidia chipsets for the most part, and ATI works with ATI and some Intel chipsets. This makes things pretty difficult when each company keeps coming out with hardware that is better than their competitors.

There have been many attempts to run dual graphics cards on any system. There were some hacked drivers for SLI on any chipset, but those have all but disappeared. There are a few motherboards that have nVidia chipsets in them, even though it is another manufacturer. Once again, for the most part, you are locked into a motherboard type. There looks to be an answer for this problem in the form of a third party chip called the Lucid Hydra 100. Is this marketing hype or the real deal?

Background information

Has the word Lucid never crossed your screen before? Don’t worry; it hadn’t crossed mine until now. It is made by LucidLogix Technologies, once again a company that you've probably never heard of. Digging into their site reveals that the whole company is focused on this single product right now.

Even if they got this chip out in the wild and mass-produced it, it would be hard for a company to get by with just this chip. So where is the money for this company coming from? This is where a familiar name pops up, Intel. We’ve all heard of Intel, and they certainly have the enough money to back this company.

When I saw Intel was the financial donor to this company, it all made sense. AMD now owns ATI, so they could disable Crossfire with a flip of a switch, and nVidia isn’t on the best terms with Intel. If both were to turn their back on Intel, they would be pushed away from the gaming market pretty quickly. I have a  feeling that Intel realizes this potential problem, and thus this idea was born for Intel. Why didn’t Intel just develop this themselves? I’m guessing if you go to the patent office, I bet you could find this idea patented already, to not look so bad for killing Crossfire and SLI.

Next: How it works >>
 

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