reasonable quad sli?

[adsmith82]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/3_way_sli_review/481/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130080

The guru3d article shows benchmarks of three 8800 ultra cards in SLI. The MSI P6N Diamond has 4 pci express x16 slots. They run at either x8 x8 x16 x8 or x16 x16 x8. I am wondering if it is possible to run this board in quad sli. A person could purchase 4 8800GT cards for close to $800 for 256mb versions. And I'm wondering, with 3x and 4x sli, would it even matter if you use 256mb or 512mb cards? Also, would the x8 vs x16 pci-x speeds make a difference? I am entertaining the idea of using a 30" samsung lcd with this setup. Higher resolution and bigger screen area with same high frame-rate means competitive advantage

 

[JPB]

If im not mistaken, the only NV cards that will run in 3 or 4 card setup's, are the GTX and Ultra versions. The rest only run two card configuration like SLI.

Edit : Link to evga proof

The following products enable 3-Way SLI:

* 3x EVGA 8800GTX or Ultra


* 1x EVGA 680i or 780i Motherboard


* 1x 3-Way SLI Bridge (purchase here)

 

[nullpointerus]

Yes, only the 8800 GTX and Ultra have the two SLi connectors (on top) needed to daisy-chain cards so that more than two can be connected.

 

[adsmith82]

So what about 4x SLI? Can that be done with the MSI P6N Diamond or any other board? Does x8 or x16 matter when doing 3x or 4x SLI?

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: adsmith82
So what about 4x SLI? Can that be done with the MSI P6N Diamond or any other board? Does x8 or x16 matter when doing 3x or 4x SLI?

The only card currently/previously available for Quad-SLI was the 7950GX2, which was a dual PCB card that could be SLI'ed with a second board for 4 total GPUs. It was never supported well and is fairly obsolete at this point.

There is dual GPU 8800 card coming out next month that you will be able to Quad-SLI. From what I've read, performance should scale better on Vista/Dx10 with Quad SLI than previous setups as Dx9 was limited to only rendering 3 frames ahead at most.