Multi slot GPU covering up slots you need? Buy this riser cable!

[da na]

Wanted to share this review, as I bought this riser cable to test it and it was legitimately quite a good product.

The idea of this cable is that it plugs into a PCIe slot on the motherboard that is blocked by your GPU. Then, you can put your card somewhere else in the case. The obvious limitation here is that, without back panel access, many cards can't be used. It's best suited for an NVMe card (we'll talk about that later on), PCIe card, or I suppose a BT/WiFi card, if you got creative with mounting.

The actual riser cable has an x1 end that plugs into the board, and an x4 mechanical slot to plug devices into on the other end (but it's running at x1, since that's the motherboard port.) You also need a SATA power cable to the riser, because the USB cable does not carry power, only PCIe signals.

Testing an NVMe Gen 3 SSD on motherboard slot vs riser cable, both Gen 3 but motherboard slot is x4 and this riser is x1, due to limitations of the PCIe end that goes on the board side. We can see there's a very significant speed penalty. (Riser is on the left.)

Spoiler

I also tested it using the highest draw x1 card I had, a FirePro 2270 x1 video card. System posted without any issue, and ran FurMark for 15mins without a crash. USB cable, motherboard USB PCIe adapter, and SATA cable got concerningly hot, though. Obviously this is a ridiculous application and not what it's built for, but it can handle higher power draw cards up to the limit of an x1 slot, certainly more than an NVMe would draw.

Spoiler

Overall, I'd say it's decent if you want to get a slot back, but you should definitely be aware of the speed difference.

Here is the link, although I bought this a while ago and now it seems to be out of stock: Amazon.com: GLOTRENDS 1X to 4X PCI-E Extension Cable 0.6M for Limited Space Installation (UEX103) : Electronics

Test hardware:

Spoiler

Kioxia 128gb NVME, blank, NTFS formatted. CrystalDiskMark NVMe test profile. X79v3 motherboard, E5-2590 V1 CPU, 4x4gb IBM DDR3-1333 ECC RAM, Windows 10 64 bit.

 

[PDifolco]

Won't a riser cable on x4 just work better?

[da na]

1 minute ago, PDifolco said:

Won't a riser cable on x4 just work better?

It would. But no riser cables that I know fit under a GPU, this one has a uniquely angled USB port 

so that it can fit in the slot under your GPU. (Quick photo for demonstration, I know this is not the right slot)

[PDifolco]

12 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

It would. But no riser cables that I know fit under a GPU, this one has a uniquely angled USB port 

so that it can fit in the slot under your GPU. (Quick photo for demonstration, I know this is not the right slot)

Ok, makes sense