pcie 4.0 riser cables?

[1982 Original]

I currently have an Asrock B550 Steel Legend motherboard with a Ryzen 3600. I am using a pcie 3.0 riser cable. The RTX 3080 is in route, will I need a new riser cable to enable pcie gen 4?  I am seeing mixed information. I’ve seen a Greg Salazar video where he clearly states a pcie 3.0 cable doesn’t work with 4.0. I’ve also seen a Paul’s Hardware video where he had to install riser cable and card in gen 3 mode, but then could switch to gen 4 and the riser cable worked just fine, it’s in his 3090 sli Rip Jay Rip GN video. 
 

Does anyone have a definitive answer on the issue?

[Mateyyy]

You don't need a PCIe 4.0 riser/slot to use a 3080 or any other PCIe 4.0 cards, since PCIe is backwards/forwards compatible.

8 minutes ago, Bobby Frags said:

I’ve seen a Greg Salazar video where he clearly states a pcie 3.0 cable doesn’t work with 4.0.

Who?

[SupaKomputa]

As far as i know (i could be wrong) pcie 4.0 has the same connection as pcie 3.0 so it won't need a physical changes.

[1982 Original]

20 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

You don't need a PCIe 4.0 riser/slot to use a 3080 or any other PCIe 4.0 cards, since PCIe is backwards/forwards compatible.

Who?

He has a pretty big YouTube channel. 
 

I know all 3080 cards will work just fine on pcie 3.0, they are all compatible. Are you saying with a riser cable sold as 3.0, it will also work in 4.0 mode at 4.0 speeds?  In Greg’s video, he tested many different riser cables with an AMD 5700 GPU. Anytime he set the slot to 4.0, the cards stopped working and the riser cable would not work. All of them only functioned when he manually set the slot to gen 3. Like I said, I recently saw a video where Paul’s Hardware clearly had a gen 3 cable, but was able to set the slot to gen4. Clearly this is conflicting information. Wondering if something has changed. 
 

 

[Mateyyy]

1 minute ago, Bobby Frags said:

Are you saying with a riser cable sold as 3.0, it will also work in 4.0 mode at 4.0 speeds?

Well, no, it will work at 3.0 speeds.

Not that that's a problem with a 3080 anyway.

[1982 Original]

1 minute ago, Mateyyy said:

Well, no, it will work at 3.0 speeds.

Not that that's a problem with a 3080 anyway.

Okay. I will give it a try anyway when the card arrives. If it works in 3.0 only, I will just plug the card into the motherboard. It’s just for looks anyway. The Gen 4 riser cables are expensive. I understand I just spent $800 on a GPU,  but $60 to $70 just for a cable isn’t happening. 

[illerin]

@Bobby Frags How did the cable work out for you? Looking at getting a cable for the 3070 i ordered and wondering about this too. If yours worked, what cable did you use? Thanks!

[BTGbullseye]

On 10/14/2020 at 5:20 AM, Bobby Frags said:

 I am using a pcie 3.0 riser cable. will I need a new riser cable to enable pcie gen 4?

Yes.

 

Gen 4 is only able to function over remarkably short tracelengths, even so much so that most x470 boards exceed the length to the first slot, which is why it wasn't enabled on those boards. To get it to go further at 4.0 speeds, you have to have a signal repeater built into the cable, which is where the extra cost comes in. (have to pay for the signal repeater hardware at both ends of the cable)

[FangerZero]

Only "4.0" cables I've seen are from LINKUP on amazon, but they don't have a right angle 35cm, anyone know of any others? I'm doing a PC Desk Custom build, but this riser cable is the only questionable part.

[Racey94]

On 11/23/2020 at 4:59 PM, FangerZero said:

Only "4.0" cables I've seen are from LINKUP on amazon, but they don't have a right angle 35cm, anyone know of any others? I'm doing a PC Desk Custom build, but this riser cable is the only questionable part.

They are the only ones i have seen too. They have right, left angle and straight options on their website,  along with various lengths and 2 colors to choose from. They are roughly £10 more expensive to direct than from amazon, but thats down to their £20 flat rate shipping to the UK. 

 

I cant find anything anywhere to say i will actually see a benefit in having one to connect sn rtx 3080 to an x570 mobo

[GoofyGufz Gamer]

No you don't need special gen 4 cable try first with your gen 3 cable some high quality cable from reputable brand maybe could transfer all gen 4 speed, but maybe the motherboard made a difference as well, my mobo is ASUS x570 Strix E Gaming, I'm using Lianli 011d gen 3 riser cable and i tried to change it to gen 4 and it just works.

 

https://lian-li.com/product/o11d-1/?cn-reloaded=1

[jriker1]

I have heard rumors and maybe from the video above, that if you have NVME PCI-E 4.0 M.2 drives in your motherboard the speed of them will be impacted by changing things to Gen 3.  Is this accurate?

[AngryBeaver]

On 10/14/2020 at 6:20 AM, 1982 Original said:

I currently have an Asrock B550 Steel Legend motherboard with a Ryzen 3600. I am using a pcie 3.0 riser cable. The RTX 3080 is in route, will I need a new riser cable to enable pcie gen 4?  I am seeing mixed information. I’ve seen a Greg Salazar video where he clearly states a pcie 3.0 cable doesn’t work with 4.0. I’ve also seen a Paul’s Hardware video where he had to install riser cable and card in gen 3 mode, but then could switch to gen 4 and the riser cable worked just fine, it’s in his 3090 sli Rip Jay Rip GN video. 
 

Does anyone have a definitive answer on the issue?

You can use the pci-e 3 riser cable if you manually select pci-e 3.0 mode for that slot in your bios. If you leave it on auto you will more than likely have issues. If you want to run pci-e 4 then you will need a pci-e 4 riser cable. I picked one up from linkup for around 65-70ish and it has worked 100% without issues.

[jriker1]

That's good to know.  I was considering the below since you get varying comments on the Linkup

 

Amazon.com: LOUQE Cobalt RC260 Twinax Gen4+ PCI-e 4.0 Riser Cable: Computers & Accessories

 

[Lostsoul29]

On 2/5/2021 at 9:24 AM, AngryBeaver said:

You can use the pci-e 3 riser cable if you manually select pci-e 3.0 mode for that slot in your bios. If you leave it on auto you will more than likely have issues. If you want to run pci-e 4 then you will need a pci-e 4 riser cable. I picked one up from linkup for around 65-70ish and it has worked 100% without issues.

Yes! Also, rn cards don't completely max out 3.0 speeds,  not sure if it was already said.  I wish I could find something similar for an mxm slot lol

[Vangelis Kevrikosaios]

I already have a mobo asus x570 f gaming along with ryzen 5 5600x and I have ordered the asus rtx3080.

I have a 100cm riser cable from thermaltake and as long as I have read here I will have to change to gen3 in order to work with my system...

I just wonder... I have purchased also a Samsung 980 pro... if I change the pcie from gen4 to gen3 will it affect and the speed of 980 pro?

[shaz2sxy]

it will work

 

yo wil have to set your bios to Gen 3 and not auto

 

i'm running a 5600x - B550i gen 3 riseer and a 3070FE

 

if i have it on auto games crash but on 3.0 it is fine

[Vangelis Kevrikosaios]

Ok... i will change it to Gen3... will this affect the speed of the Nvme also?

[J Wray]

EDIT: This was bad advice, it turned out to be a faulty monitor cable. But he does go thru the exercise of explaining pcie 3 v pcie 4 riser cables, so I'm gonna leave it. /EDIT

 

It depends. There was a Bitwit video a couple days ago where he runs into this:

 

Maybe that will help? I think it is likely dependent on the motherboard/riser combination. If you don't want to watch the video, I think he wound up with the pcie 4.0 riser from Amazon as well.

[kingknightrider]

On 3/18/2021 at 6:26 AM, Vangelis Kevrikosaios said:

Ok... i will change it to Gen3... will this affect the speed of the Nvme also?

It changes for the whole motherboard.

[kingknightrider]

On 3/18/2021 at 8:51 AM, J Wray said:

It depends. There was a Bitwit video a couple days ago where he runs into this:

 

Maybe that will help? I think it is likely dependent on the motherboard/riser combination. If you don't want to watch the video, I think he wound up with the pcie 4.0 riser from Amazon as well.

Didn't help him in the end.

Still had the problem till he switched from non-VESA Display Port to HDMI 2.1 then to DP 1.4

Could that be it?

There is nothing actually wrong with Riser Gen4 compatibility -just certain combinations between monitor and graphics card don't work?

Also Switching off of Display Port to HDMI is that a downgrade, upgrade or sideways grade?
New to these I been using my trusty old DVI for a decade.

[J Wray]

Yeah, I should have fixed it.

 

The HDMI is sideways grade as long as it is at least HDMI 1.4. Who knows when you grab an HDMI cable out of the bottom of the drawer?  You assume it's a normal HDMI cable. You may not know until you try to connect to a 75hz monitor or more. I try to use DisplayPort unless it isn't possible.

 

The cable specs are getting out of hand.

[Deadllhead]

I've been having fun with this.

I decided to get a (coolermaster) vertical mount in preparation for the EKWB for my 3090FE that was due in a few weeks. The 3090 produced NO picture when the PCIex16 was set to Auto you had to manually adjust it to PCIe 3.0 and from then on it works fine. You'll be leaving some performance on the table moving down to 3.0 and if like me you're water cooling you're going to have a bad day when playing with OC because chances are your going to need a bios reset which will revert you back to auto and no picture. The only way around that is to slot the GPU back into the MB.  Ouch.

I wonder why there isn't more PCIe4.0 options available from the likes of Coolermaster, LianLi etc.

Turns out the CoolerMaster vertical bracket is a thin piece of poorly designed crap and couldn't take the weight of the GPU but that's something else entirely 

[Sav9]

From what I understand the riser cables are not rated for pcie 4 data transfere, I havent got one yet either My whole PC is gen 4 I dont wana break the cypher lol