Lucid Hydra debut

[dividebyzero]

MSI's long awaited P55 FUZION finally hits the review testbenches...
How disappointing. Lucid have their work cut out getting the driver and gaming profiles in some kind of shape to make this a saleable technology.
A brief rundown of the high and lowlights:

Very limited game support
No PhysX in mixed mode (nVidia + ATI) - nVidia's fault at a guess.
No DirectX 11 support at all.
Latest Forceware drivers not supported.
No support for multi GPU graphics cards (HD 5970, GTX 295 etc.)
Cannot access primary graphics card Control Panel
Cannot select nVidia AA settings in mixed mode (nVidia+ATI)
User cannot build their own game profiles for unsupported games.
Higher CPU overhead than Crossfire or SLI
No performance boost over Crossfire or SLI
The technology works, but only just.
The MSI FUZION (all caps) motherboard will rival mainstream X58 boards in price.

I see why Asustek and Gigabyte declined to get involved with the Lucid project.

Sources:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/01/08/msi-big-bang-fusion-lucid-hydra-arrives/1
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-big-bang-fuzion-lucid-hydra-review-test/

 

[raybay]

There must be a lot of stuff you missed, because I cannot see MSI doing this without good reasons.

 

[dividebyzero]

Missed ? As in what precisely?

"I cannot see MSI doing this without good reasons" -this is company that released the P7N2 Diamond (however briefly). If I had to guess I'd say that they are using the Fuzion in an attempt to hold parity as the number 3 consumer first-tier motherboard manufacturer (behind Asustek and Gigabyte) as EVGA starts to eat into it's market share. Both Gigabyte and EVGA have better quality control if the DOA numbers are any indication, while Asus have always had a large customer base and can rely on the RoG branding.
If MSI are doing this for good reasons, then by extrapolation, it indicates that Asus and Gigabyte are in error for declining to get involved-obviously an opportunity missed.

As it stands Hydra has potential. As of now it's a gimmick (the reviewers phraseology).
Releasing the technology in such an unfinished state is going to harm it's reputation, especially when paired with an obviously over-priced motherboard. That the same motherboard without Hydra (the P55-GD80) is priced as a mainstream product doesn't auger well for sales.
You see any positives for releasing sub-performing technology whose direct competition is two fairly mature better performing multi gpu systems with near-rabid fanbases?

***Edit*** MSI's Fuzion product page...
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1979
Shows a chart where an HD 5870 AND A GTX 285 is SLOWER than an HD 5870 - awesome marketing!

As the chip and drivers mature, as I'm sure they will, and the support and framerates improve, would you expect the taint of it's launch failure to disappear?

Case in point. GSC launched STALKER: Clear Sky in an unfinished state- it has been patched and troublefree for some time. The game is still a byword for unplayability and amateurish game coding.

Please enlighten me to how you view these reviews as a positive for MSI (and Hydra). You will most likely have the option of many more reviews in the addition to the two I posted to start the thread.

 

[Technochicken]

***Edit*** MSI's Fuzion product page...
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1979
Shows a chart where an HD 5870 AND A GTX 285 is SLOWER than an HD 5870 - awesome marketing!

That must be a mistake, as in the Guru3D review, the 5870 + GTX 285 setup performed a good bit better than a single 5870.

 

[dividebyzero]

Now that the product page is up I would expect future reviews to link to it- Will be interesting to see if Microstar take the chart down or amend it. Either way it doesn't reflect well on them.
Hilbert's reviews and testing are usually spot on so I would look to them as being more indicative of the performance which compounds MSI's problems. Having pushed out a half-finished product they then add insult to their own injury by doing a hatchet job on their own motherboard.