Lucid Virtu Pointless?

iostream · 1 Aug 2011 at 10:57

Hi folks,

Been researching some motherboards for my upcoming Sandy Bridge build. I was having a look at some of the Z68 motherboards, and the Lucid Virtu feature caught my eye.

However as far as I am aware, graphics cards today downclock themselves when they are idle, and would pull the same wattage as when Lucid Virtu downclocks them.

The only benefit therefore that I can see is that you get Quick Sync as well. However I do not foresee myself doing any video encoding work - is is therefore pointless getting a Z68 board for myself? Or are there some big features that I am missing?

kevpuk · 1 Aug 2011 at 11:06

Horses for courses, for sure, but there are other useful features, potentially - maybe the SRT (SSD caching) is useful for some......or the very fact that (most of) the Z68 boards have onboard gfx means one doesn't need to keep a spare card kicking around for emergencies :eek:

.....

Trofeo · 1 Aug 2011 at 11:20

If like myself you retire your main PC after a couple years and donate it to your parents or use as a file server or something, the on board graphics would be ideal. Not only do I want to avoid the extra power consumption of a graphics card in a server that's left on all the time but also want to use my old card for nvidia physx

iostream · 1 Aug 2011 at 13:07

Ah of course, never considered the onboard graphics in that way. As it happens I do have an 8600 GT in a cupboard for emergencies.

Anyone know if Lucid Virtu still works with Crossfire/SLI?

Trofeo · 1 Aug 2011 at 13:56

iostream said:
Anyone know if Lucid Virtu still works with Crossfire/SLI?

That's an interesting point, I would also be interested to know if anyone has tried this. My guess for what it's worth is that it should work.

pgi947 · 3 Aug 2011 at 21:02

iostream said:
Anyone know if Lucid Virtu still works with Crossfire/SLI?

I don't think it does, though I haven't tried, in my bios options I can either have pcie/iGpu pci/iGpu iGpu or pcie/pcie

Naturally I set it to pcie/pcie for crossfire cards so I too would like some clarification on this?

dannyjerome0 · 5 Dec 2011 at 23:24

I have tried repeatedly to get Virtu to work with an SLI configuration. I had SLI running just fine, with two GTX 460's. THEN, I went into BIOS and enabled Virtu (in d-mode), while still using the DVI output of my primary GPU. I rebooted and it seemed to be working okay, so I downloaded the Virtu software/driver from my motherboard's manufacturer site. It installed okay, and seemed to be working fine. However, after restarting my system, I found that my PC would no longer recognize the second GPU, and SLI was not an option in nVidia CP. I've tried everything, but it seems to me that you can either go SLI or use Virtu, but it won't work with both. I still have yet to update my BIOS with the latest rom, but have been pressed for time. I'll try that and see what happens.