I was wondering...

[Retro Gaming]

So I know that people can do like crazy quad graphic card builds and I was wondering can you do more than 4 graphics cards at once or is 4 the max you can have?

[Glenwing]

Crossfire/SLI software does not support more than 4 working together.

[SAV1OUR]

4 is the max rightnow 

[Retro Gaming]

Crossfire/SLI software does not support more than 4 working together.

Do you think in the future you might be able to have more?

[whatthe_fuzz]

Well for gaming no. You would run out of PCIe lane support from the CPU AFAIK

 

The CPU can only handle X number of PCI lanes. If you have 6 cards running at 8x per lane that's 48 lanes JUST for GPUs

[Excon]

Well for gaming no. You would run out of PCIe lane support from the CPU AFAIK

 

The CPU can only handle X number of PCI lanes. If you have 6 cards running at 8x per lane that's 48 lanes JUST for GPUs

That's why some motherboards have PLX chips.

[HK_Rage]

4 is the max for everything besides supercomputers. Really no reason to go past 3 since 3 & 4 SLI/XF'd cards maybe have 1-3fps difference. 

[Retro Gaming]

4 is the max for everything besides supercomputers. Really no reason to go past 3 since 3 & 4 SLI/XF'd cards maybe have 1-3fps difference. 

For super computers do you use like multiple motherboards or is it all custom built?

[whatthe_fuzz]

That's why some motherboards have PLX chips.

 

Right but ATM we still have a lack of CPU lanes to run 4 cards at x16 AFAIK

 

 

4 is the max for everything besides supercomputers. Really no reason to go past 3 since 3 & 4 SLI/XF'd cards maybe have 1-3fps difference. 

 

Not on 4K. Everything scales exceptionally

[HK_Rage]

I believe they just use a bunch of PCI-E Cable Extenders but then again, I know little of supercomputers.

[legopc]

Do you think in the future you might be able to have more?

you would need a giant mobo for that or very small gpus 

[legopc]

I believe they just use a bunch of PCI-E Cable Extenders but then again, I know little of supercomputers.

yes in that case you could use more that 4 gpus in one build but in gaming you would on be able to use 4 of them 

[Darren]

For super computers do you use like multiple motherboards or is it all custom built?

 

Clusters, let alone supercomputers don't use SLI/Crossfire technology, nor do they use consumer graphics cards. One example of technology clusters use to render graphics is ClusterGL.

[Glenwing]

If software supported it it would be entirely feasible to have maybe 6 or 7 cards in a custom loop if EVGA (for example) were to make their hydro copper cards single slot like they did for the 500 series, even on PCI Express 3.0 x4 lanes everything would be fine.  The scaling would likely be terrible but I guess it would look pretty cool in your case.

[Glenwing]

Supercomputers are entirely custom designed and how they build it will differ between each one.  They often work directly with the chip designer whether it is Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD (or in IBM's case, with themselves), and the boards and expansion cards are completely tailor-made.  They don't build supercomputers by ordering parts from Newegg

 

It's also worth noting that running multiple graphics cards is not the same thing as running multiple cards in SLI/CrossFireX.  You can run as many cards as you want if you're just using them as regular expansion cards (for computation, for example) rather than as your graphics adapter.

 

[tobben]

Supercomputers are entirely custom designed and how they build it will differ between each one.  They often work directly with the chip designer whether it is Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD (or in IBM's case, with themselves), and the boards and expansion cards are completely tailor-made.  They don't build supercomputers by ordering parts from Newegg

 

It's also worth noting that running multiple graphics cards is not the same thing as running multiple cards in SLI/CrossFireX.  You can run as many cards as you want if you're just using them as regular expansion cards (for computation, for example) rather than as your graphics adapter.

 

 

 

that is what i was just about to say .. you can have more than 4 individual cards, but you can't have more than 4 cards running in crossfire/sli

4 way sli/crossfire is silly anyway and doesn't really have any benefit, more cards isn't the solution, get better gpu's, no normal consumer needs that, if he did he wouldn't be running them in crossfire/sli anyway.

[TeKNiQue]

that is what i was just about to say .. you can have more than 4 individual cards, but you can't have more than 4 cards running in crossfire/sli

4 way sli/crossfire is silly anyway and doesn't really have any benefit, more cards isn't the solution, get better gpu's, no normal consumer needs that, if he did he wouldn't be running them in crossfire/sli anyway.

4x 780 Ti's for 4k gaming

[tobben]

4x 780 Ti's for 4k gaming

no normal consumer is gaming at 4k in high settings, and 4 way sli/crossfire still has shitty scaling, and there certainly wouldn't be any benfit to having 5-6 cards, hopefully by the time 4k is more normal gpu's will have catched up more, most of us are still stuck at 1080p and haven't even got to 1440p yet, the day they make a 24 inch 1440p monitor .. i will be all over that.