HydraLogix Vs. SLI And CrossFire: MSI's P55A Fuzion Tested

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LucidLogix forges ahead with its promise of multi-GPU compatibility across multiple graphics architectures and platforms. Today we see how its latest drivers stand up to the performance standards of CrossFire and SLI on a much more cost-sensitive board.

Benchmark Results: Crysis

Crysis is a very old problem for graphics cards manufacturers, setting the gold standard by which hardware can be fully stressed. Lucid unfortunately supports only 32-bit mode in this game.

We ran several tests to determine the best way to benchmark Crysis with HydraLogix enabled. First we tried adding the 64-bit mode manually, only to experience an odd form of corruption similar to microstutter in tile-mode. We then tested the game in officially-supported 32-bit mode, only to find the frame rates dropping to the same level a single-card produces in 64-bit mode.

Unlike the original Crysis game, the later Crysis Warhead is supported by HydraLogix. While most of our readers no longer play original Crysis, the existence of these differences is enough for us to call MSI out once again for not including an SLI bridge on a motherboard that supports that technology in addition to HydraLogix N-Mode.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
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80 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tacoslave
    Still seems to buggy to me but at least they're still working on it right?
    Reply
  • duk3
    Looks good on the 1st 2 games and synthetics.
    I hope Lucid gets all the issues worked out.
    Reply
  • anacandor
    So basically it's just a universal CF/SLI connecter built into the motherboard? Seems odd that it's taken this long to be developed, but great nonetheless :)
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Looks like it has some promise, if they can further work the kinks out. Something to keep an eye on in the future.
    Reply
  • ruffopurititiwang
    The 6870 scales better in cfx than that 5850. Why not test that?
    Reply
  • punnar
    I can see it as a standard in the future. I think I will buy a board with Hydralogix on my next build.
    Reply
  • Yargnit
    It would have been nice to see how well this works with two differing AMD/ATI cards and two Nvidia cards. For instance someone has a GTX260 and wants to add a GTX460, or someone with a AMD5850 who wants to pick up a new 6870 (damn numbering change) to go with it.

    Also comparing performance pairing two cards from the same generation (say GTX 460 + GTX 470) vs differing generations. (GTX 260 + GTX460)

    Lastly what affect would pairing a two cards with varying amounts of memory have? (two regular versions of a card vs 1 reg + 1 dbl memory vs 2 dbl memory) Since it isn't clear from what I've read if both cards would be limited to lowest memory level or not.

    Interesting tech for sure
    Reply
  • sudeshc
    this should become a standard, allowing us to enjoy features from both manufacturers. I would also be prepared to pay few extra bucks for this as well.
    Reply
  • Maziar
    Overall,Lucid is a great idea of mixing different cards but it still needs quite a lot of work with drivers.
    Reply
  • Yargnit
    Ah, thank you. It was posted before I was frequently following the site, I'll give it a look.
    Reply