Risers

So you want to mine with more cards than you have room for. This is where a “riser” comes into play. You connect one end into an x1 or x16 slot, and then the card plugs into an x16 slot on the other end. Between the two, a USB 3.0 cable connects the cards together.

Reliability

Most aftermarket risers have the stigma of not being very reliable. Personal example: I purchased a pack of six, one was DOA, another failed within a week. You should always have an extra riser or two on-hand in case of a failure.

Powered vs Unpowered Ribbon

If you plan on running more than two cards on your rig and cannot fit them on your motherboard, do not buy unpowered ribbon risers. This will result in an overdraw in power and can easily damage your PSU, Motherboard, and other components. Here is a good example of someone who did not heed that warning:

Which is best?

General rule of thumb is to convert the least number of times as possible to avoid poor quality components. It is also important to understand power draw versus the standard of the connector which you are planning on using. Your video card will pull up to 75w from the PCI-e slot itself, then require the remainder be sent from the PSU rail directly.

• 6-pin PCI-e Power cable is rated for 75 watts/13 amps, the same amount given by the PCI-e lane on the motherboard.
• Molex is rated for 132 watts/11 amps.
• SATA is rated for 54 watts/4.5 amps. – Do not convert from SATA to Molex/6-pin, this will cause an overdraw and could result in a fire.

Do not use any included harnesses. You should be buying the riser based on the connector present on the board relative to your PSU’s connectors. If you need to buy an adapter, only buy high-quality adapters which use 14AWG and better cabling.

How should I convert power?

Use this handy table to decide how to split power between connectors. It is always best to buy a fully modular power supply and extra harnesses with the desired connectors if your PSU supports it.

Always refer to the maximum wattage and amp draw when converting, this is almost always 1-to-1 for each converting connector.

Bottlenecking

A common question is if these risers will create a performance problem by bottlenecking x16 cards down to x1 speeds. Generally speaking, for mining, no.