GPUs scaling into supercomputers' territory: Hydra

We have little doubt at this point that GPU-based stream computing will have its place in future PCs. One more indication that we may not yet fully understand what GPUs may be capable of is a new technology called Hydra. Created by LucidLogix, Hydra delivers a hardware-software interface that can run a number of graphics cardsVideo card - not just two or four - within one system. The benefit, of course may not be increased graphics performance, as most current games have trouble to scale even beyond two graphics chips. The benefit could be to scale the GPGPU performance deep into supercomputer territory. If you have the necessary power supply, the 5 or 10 TFlops could be within reach.

According to LucidLogix, Hydra combines a system-on-chip with proprietary softwarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software technologies that load-balance graphics processing tasks. The company promises "near-linear to above-linear performance with two, three or more graphics cards".

"We’re currently focusing our Hydra engine on improving everyday PC performance, but our vision is to bring more scalability, flexibility and power to all visual processing markets including graphics professionals, power gamers, design/engineering professionals and others," said Offir Remez, LucidLogix co-founder and president. "

Despite GPU scaling issues in current games, LucidLogix claims that it has been able to speed up games such as Crysis, Unreal and Bioshock by 85-95%.

We've developed a software-agnostic, real time distributed processing engine, HYDRA, which will allow GPUs from any vendor to work together more efficiently.