Zodiak wrote:
Hello All 🙂
I know there doesnt seem to be any 1155 boards that support 4 video cards in sli (without them being dual cards) but I havent been able to get an answer out of anyone. What would happen if you installed 4x video cards in the Maximus IV (or any other motherboard with multiple x16, x8 slots) and connected them with SLI bridges?
Thank you 🙂
Well, the following won't get you SLI specifically, but it will allow 4 video cards:
I discovered that, unlike some older ASUS boards with 4 x16 slots, the maximus refuses to "scale down" the number of lanes it will use per slot when all 4 slots (the x16 ones) are filled. In other words, because the board (chipset) doesn't have 64 PCIe lanes available (4 x 16), rather than give each card less lanes - which b.t.w. is specifically what PCIe was designed to do - it will just ignore an ENTIRE slot.
But, there is a workaround, and I have verified it works:
Plug 3 of the video cards into 3 of the x16 full length slots. Plug the 4th video card into the smaller, x4 slot (NOT the x1 slot!). Don't worry about the fact that the card edge connector of your video card will "hang off the back" of the slot, unconnected. It may look strange but PCIe allows for this; it's why the plastic on the card slot is left open in the back.
Don't count on that x4 slotted video card to provide much performance with respect to 3D rendering, but at least you'll have a usable 4th video card.
I have this working with one nvidia 9800GTX and 3 nvidia 8600 GTs....8 monitors, very acceptable performance.
