How many expansion slots needed for 4-way SLI/Crossfire on Asus Z97-WS?

[asim1999]

how many expansion slots are needed for 4 Graphics cards as I am planning to get a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe full tower. this case has 8 expansion slots at the back and can fit upto EATX and SSI EEB motherboards.

All responses appreciated. Thanks

 

[stokes1790]

modern graphics card are typically dual slot, with some specialty low profile cards being 1 slot. Some cards with after market cooling may be 2.5 slot or even 3 slot. Since you are planning on a 4 way SLI set up, which is a pretty niche build. I would suggest you look at the specific cards you plan on using and determining if your case/mobo/psu can support them. If the card you want is 2 slot, you are likely fine, if its 2.5 slot, you might have an issue. But there is no point in speaking in generalities for something like this, you should list the specific parts you plan on using.

 

[HEXiT]

4 way sli doesnt work well mate. you get 70-90% gains from the second card card 30-50% from the 3rd card and 5% from the 4th.
so as you can see the returns for your money just wont materialize. reason for this is nvidia drivers they just dont perform well in quad sli.
amd work well up to 3 gpu's but still fall down themselves on quadfire.

 

[asim1999]

the GPU is an MSI r9 290 Gaming 4G graphics card

 

[HEXiT]

in that case the max gpu's you can use is 3 and as a rule there 2 slot cards although powercolour does do a 3 slot cooler i think...
amd crossfire will support 4 gpus on 2 cards but doesnt work well with 4 separate gpu's.
same rules apply of diminishing returns for every card you use over the first 2. so crossfire only is the best value.