This read-write value sets the maximum number of cells the egress queue may buffer before the switch begins discarding arriving cells, with the ceiling capped at 8000 on 4-port AUSM cards versus 16000 on other variants. An administrator raises this to absorb longer bursts at the cost of added latency, or lowers it to bound delay for latency-sensitive traffic. For instance, setting egrQDepthMax to 2000 on a busy queue limits buffering so a sustained overload starts shedding cells rather than building unbounded delay.