Why "only" 4 cards?

[Something Else]

Something I was just thinking about, why is 4 the maximum number of gpu's you can fit into a home user pc?

Is it an intentional limit or is it just current limits of hardware?

I understand that in certain circumstances that more than 4 are used for bitcoin mining i think but im thinking why 4 for gaming.

I realise that 4 decent gpu's will power pretty much any game right now but why is the limit generally 4 gpus?

 

[BigAndy87]

More difficult to program drivers to take advantage of more cards I imagine , performance scaling drops with every card, diminishing returns.

 

[Deceptor]

Few things off the top of my head including what Andy said:

- Performance scaling (probably the biggest factor)
- Power Draw (you'd need an excellent PSU + Mobo)
- PCI-E Bandwidth (not 100%, but this might be an issue)
- CPU Bottleneck (you need a good CPU to do 2-way SLI/CF, 5+ would be crazy)
- Cost (obv if you're interested this isn't a factor )
- Overkill (it's hard to justify 3-way unless you're using some crazy surround setup)

Like 4-way, If they did bring about 5+ I think it would only ever appeal to hardcore benchers or fat/silly wallets

 

[Martini1991]

With lucid hydra or whatever it's called you could do more, I think the MSI Big Bang had a bunch of cards in at one point.

 

[d_brennen]

With AFR anyway and more than 2 cards, what would be the point - you'd have 2/3rds of your cards sitting doing nothing waiting for their turn at any given time

 

[andy_mk3]

When 4k becomes more popular, we're going to need a LOT more grunt to play that kinda res nicely though

 

[Something Else]

its just something that ive have wondered about from time to time. Im excited for ivy e to come out so that the people on the forum (kaap of the top of my head) can push their quad titan setups even more.