High end 4 way sli mobo z97

[Zach TOm]

Hey I am in the market for a 4 way sli mobo for the Z97 chipset, either the Ga Z97x Gaming G1, the Ga Z97x Gaming G1 WIFI Black edition, or the EVGA Z97 Classified. I am also open to other suggestions. I am going to use an i5 4690k. Thank you

[MegaDave91]

You should be using x99 for 4 way SLI/Xfire.

[kittsykat]

Look at Jaystwocents channel.

[Aniallation]

Hey I am in the market for a 4 way sli mobo for the Z97 chipset, either the Ga Z97x Gaming G1, the Ga Z97x Gaming G1 WIFI Black edition, or the EVGA Z97 Classified. I am also open to other suggestions. I am going to use an i5 4690k. Thank you

Why a 4 way SLI motherboard? The maximum you want to be doing is 3 way, as 4 way barely adds any benefit for what you're paying in the cost for the fourth GPU as well as heat and power consumption. Even if you did 4 way SLI you should be using X79/X99 as Z97 has limited PCIe lanes to support it. 

 

[Krytopsy]

Pugs have no clues about your needs,  MegaDave91 is right. For that amount of graphic power, you better with X99 that gives way more PCI-E lanes to get most of your GPUs. That being said, multi GPUs can get bottlenecked by some game at some specific resolutions. An a exemple, in 1080p 2 graphic cards scale well in almost all games but 3 don't except in most demanding games like Crysis 3.

[runit3]

-snip-

I wish I could tell my curiosity "no", but it just doesn't work that way...like accidents on the highway, Mac's for web browsing, or why my cat has the insatiable need to knock everything off my desk... all questions that need answers

[FlashingKool_Z]

Why a 4 way SLI motherboard? The maximum you want to be doing is 3 way, as 4 way barely adds any benefit for what you're paying in the cost for the fourth GPU as well as heat and power consumption. Even if you did 4 way SLI you should be using X79/X99 as Z97 has limited PCIe lanes to support it. 

 

There are motherboards like the Gigabyte Z97xGaming G1 Wifi-BK (that was what this thread was supposed to be, helping him decide a motherboard for it lol) that have the plx chip to support 4-way, but yeah, you shouldn't be doing 4-way SLI on Z97. 

[Mistersprinkles]

There are motherboards like the Gigabyte Z97xGaming G1 Wifi-BK (that was what this thread was supposed to be, helping him decide a motherboard for it lol) that have the plx chip to support 4-way, but yeah, you shouldn't be doing 4-way SLI on Z97. 

 

There are X99 boards with dual PLX (X99-E WS) allowing 16/16/16/16. Granted, that board is stupidly expensive, but these options do exist. Without PLX, X99 is either 28 or 40 PCIE lanes depending on which CPU you choose. 

Even if you did go 8/8/8/8 on a Z97 board with PLX, due to the latency introduced by the PLX chip, you really wouldn't get true 8/8/8/8 performance.

 

As others have said, 4 way is crazy and ridiculous. The advantages over 3 way are almost immeasurably small. Go 3 way at the most. 

[GodSpoon]

4 way SLI is almost pointless, the most you should go with is 3 to begin with, but go for an x99 board not a z97.
Not enough money/fps for anyone to be doing that kind of rig unfortunately mate :\

Id go with a two way SLI on a z97 classified if I were you

[i_build_nanosuits]

Even if you did go 8/8/8/8 on a Z97 board with PLX, due to the latency introduced by the PLX chip, you really wouldn't get true 8/8/8/8 performance.

This is wrong

As others have said, 4 way is crazy and ridiculous. The advantages over 3 way are almost immeasurably small. Go 3 way at the most.

This is right

OP, don't even bother considering 4 way SLI, most games won't even get any benefit from 3 way SLI...heck, some games don't even support 2 way SLI and the ones that do more often than not will get less than 60% performance increase from card #2...the third card will often be sitting there doing nothing...let alone the 4th card.

[Zach TOm]

Maximum I'm going is 3 cards but I want the ability to have 3 and a sound card but don't wanna have to drop a ton on x99