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iFreilicht
[H]ard|Gawd
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A lot of new case designs are using flexible PCIe risers, and for a good reason. They allow for flexibility when placing the GPU, enabling much more efficient layouts.
There are many different risers out there, so I thought it would be helpful to have a thread where we can collect information on those risers and discuss recent developments regarding those risers.
So here are all the ones I have in my private research notes. I'll expand and correct this list until a suitable section on sffwiki.net is made.
Generic riser:
Price: ~3-20$
Shielded: No
Length: ~5-30cm
Connector: Straight
Available: ebay, multiple sellers.
These risers have been used in quite a few builds without causing problems. Hahutzy specifically reported that he still hasn't had an issue using one of these in Hassium and the Hutzy XS. Other users like Runamok81 haven't been that lucky and had to wrap their riser in aluminium foil to make it work.
In general, I wouldn't recommend using a single one of those, though you can of course try your luck.
LiHeat:
Price: ~20-50$
Shielded: Yes, copper tape
Length: 5-50cm
Connector: Straight ("D.type"), left-angle ("B.type" - seen in picture), right-angle ("A.type")
Available: Through ebay-user liheat48 or by e-mail.
These risers are pretty much glorified generic risers. They are made up of regular ribbon cables with copper tape in between to prevent crosstalk and metallic tape wrapped around the outside. This makes them quite stiff and thick, more than 2mm.
They perform fairly well, but users on different forums report problems with some of them. These risers are now offered with plastic strain reliefs on both ends which prevent damaging of the solder joints, maybe someone can post a more recent picture.
They are exclusively sold as leftover stock from contracts with larger companies on ebay, so it might take some time until the desired length and connector option becomes available directly. Sometimes they have a few more options when you contact them via mail, and they also make risers of custom length if you can reach a certain MOQ.
LiHeat produced the PW-PCI-E and PW-PCI-E38 risers for LianLi, which were used in the PC-O and PC-Y6 cases. These cables have been discontinued for unknown reason, more info below.
This riser was tested in a chained 100cm configuration and still managed to run Firestrike with minmal performance loss.
LianLi:
Price: ~70-80$
Shielded: Quite probably.
Length: 30cm or 38cm
Connector: Right-angle
Available: Retail and online stores.
LianLi started using a flexible riser of some sort in the PC-C36-Muse a long time ago, but only recently revisited riser-based designs with the PC-O series and the novelty PC-Y6. These cases initially used risers from LiHeat (see above), but those were swapped out later for the PW-PCIE38-1 and PW-PCIE30-1, the supplier of which seems to be TC&C. One might suspect that this switch was caused by either supply or quality issues with the LiHeat cables. dondan claims that these risers are using twin-axial cables.
Thermaltake:
Price: ~30$
Shielded: Yes.
Length: 22cm
Connector: Straight, very long.
Available: Retail and online stores.
Thermaltake started selling the AC-039-CN1OTN-C1 with the release of the not-so-SFF Core P5 Wall-mount chassis. Supplier and quality are unknown, but it might be made by sintech, see below.
HDPLEX:
Price: 35.5$ (as of 2016-08-03)
Shielded: No.
Length: 15+cm
Connector: Left-angle
Available: Only from HDPLEX directly.
This riser is probably the thinnest one in existence at ~0.14mm. Compared to other risers, it is manufactured as a double-sided FPC (flexible printed circuit). Because it isn't multi-layered, it is not shielded whatsoever. It is normally bundled with their H5 chassis, which uses a similar kind of cable for the Front USB3.0 connections.
The connector on the motherboard side is very different from normal risers, but works perfectly fine and leaves about 2mm of space towards the edge of an ITX mainboard, so no fitment issues arise from this configuration.
A short review can be read here. It was confirmed by HDPLEX that this riser was tested with GTX 750Ti GPUs without a 6pin connector with no problems. While it is advertised as 15cm, that seems to be the absolute minimum length this riser can have. Mine was more like 16.5cm.
3M:
Price: ~90-80$
Shielded: Yes, using twin-axial cables.
Length: 25cm or 50cm
Connector: Straight
Available: digikey
Most famously used in the DAN A4-SFX, this riser seems to be the holy grail in terms of quality. 3M has already confirmed it to be compatible with PCIe 4.0 specs, which is a very impressive feat. Unfortunately, it is one of the most expensive risers to date and is not available with angled connectors. The riser uses twin-axial cables to achieve its high performance and is very flexible. Each ribbon is 0.75mm thick for a total of 1.5mm.
This riser is also available for 8x and 4x links.
ModDIY/sintech:
Price: ~20-40$
Shielded: Yes, probably using metallic tape.
Length: 5-30cm
Connector: Straight
Available: modDIY (19cm and 30cm), ebay sintech.cn (5+cm), aliexpress (5+cm)
Not a lot to say about this one. A few people have used it and so far I haven't heard of any problems. It seems very similar to the one Thermaltake is using, so maybe sintech is actually producing the Thermaltake riser.
Internally I would suspect it to be similar to the LiHeat riser, though it looks thinner on pictures. Sintech also makes custom risers to order and has a website where a right-angle riser with shielded ribbon cables is shown.
Adexelec:
Price: ~80$
Shielded: Yes and no.
Length: Varies:
Connector: Straight, Left-angle
Available: Only from manufacturer.
This company made the risers for the Orthrus Prototype, in which they seem to work great. It seems like their risers are only available made to order.
Samtech:
Price: ?
Shielded: Yes, using twin-axial cables.
Length: 30cm, other lengths available.
Connector: Straight
Available: Only from manufacturer
This riser seems to be very similar to the 3M one, but with thicker cables and longer PCBs. Firewolfy tested it here.
There are many different risers out there, so I thought it would be helpful to have a thread where we can collect information on those risers and discuss recent developments regarding those risers.
So here are all the ones I have in my private research notes. I'll expand and correct this list until a suitable section on sffwiki.net is made.
Generic riser:
Price: ~3-20$
Shielded: No
Length: ~5-30cm
Connector: Straight
Available: ebay, multiple sellers.
These risers have been used in quite a few builds without causing problems. Hahutzy specifically reported that he still hasn't had an issue using one of these in Hassium and the Hutzy XS. Other users like Runamok81 haven't been that lucky and had to wrap their riser in aluminium foil to make it work.
In general, I wouldn't recommend using a single one of those, though you can of course try your luck.
LiHeat:
Price: ~20-50$
Shielded: Yes, copper tape
Length: 5-50cm
Connector: Straight ("D.type"), left-angle ("B.type" - seen in picture), right-angle ("A.type")
Available: Through ebay-user liheat48 or by e-mail.
These risers are pretty much glorified generic risers. They are made up of regular ribbon cables with copper tape in between to prevent crosstalk and metallic tape wrapped around the outside. This makes them quite stiff and thick, more than 2mm.
They perform fairly well, but users on different forums report problems with some of them. These risers are now offered with plastic strain reliefs on both ends which prevent damaging of the solder joints, maybe someone can post a more recent picture.
They are exclusively sold as leftover stock from contracts with larger companies on ebay, so it might take some time until the desired length and connector option becomes available directly. Sometimes they have a few more options when you contact them via mail, and they also make risers of custom length if you can reach a certain MOQ.
LiHeat produced the PW-PCI-E and PW-PCI-E38 risers for LianLi, which were used in the PC-O and PC-Y6 cases. These cables have been discontinued for unknown reason, more info below.
This riser was tested in a chained 100cm configuration and still managed to run Firestrike with minmal performance loss.
LianLi:
Price: ~70-80$
Shielded: Quite probably.
Length: 30cm or 38cm
Connector: Right-angle
Available: Retail and online stores.
LianLi started using a flexible riser of some sort in the PC-C36-Muse a long time ago, but only recently revisited riser-based designs with the PC-O series and the novelty PC-Y6. These cases initially used risers from LiHeat (see above), but those were swapped out later for the PW-PCIE38-1 and PW-PCIE30-1, the supplier of which seems to be TC&C. One might suspect that this switch was caused by either supply or quality issues with the LiHeat cables. dondan claims that these risers are using twin-axial cables.
Thermaltake:
Price: ~30$
Shielded: Yes.
Length: 22cm
Connector: Straight, very long.
Available: Retail and online stores.
Thermaltake started selling the AC-039-CN1OTN-C1 with the release of the not-so-SFF Core P5 Wall-mount chassis. Supplier and quality are unknown, but it might be made by sintech, see below.
HDPLEX:
Price: 35.5$ (as of 2016-08-03)
Shielded: No.
Length: 15+cm
Connector: Left-angle
Available: Only from HDPLEX directly.
This riser is probably the thinnest one in existence at ~0.14mm. Compared to other risers, it is manufactured as a double-sided FPC (flexible printed circuit). Because it isn't multi-layered, it is not shielded whatsoever. It is normally bundled with their H5 chassis, which uses a similar kind of cable for the Front USB3.0 connections.
The connector on the motherboard side is very different from normal risers, but works perfectly fine and leaves about 2mm of space towards the edge of an ITX mainboard, so no fitment issues arise from this configuration.
A short review can be read here. It was confirmed by HDPLEX that this riser was tested with GTX 750Ti GPUs without a 6pin connector with no problems. While it is advertised as 15cm, that seems to be the absolute minimum length this riser can have. Mine was more like 16.5cm.
3M:
Price: ~90-80$
Shielded: Yes, using twin-axial cables.
Length: 25cm or 50cm
Connector: Straight
Available: digikey
Most famously used in the DAN A4-SFX, this riser seems to be the holy grail in terms of quality. 3M has already confirmed it to be compatible with PCIe 4.0 specs, which is a very impressive feat. Unfortunately, it is one of the most expensive risers to date and is not available with angled connectors. The riser uses twin-axial cables to achieve its high performance and is very flexible. Each ribbon is 0.75mm thick for a total of 1.5mm.
This riser is also available for 8x and 4x links.
ModDIY/sintech:
Price: ~20-40$
Shielded: Yes, probably using metallic tape.
Length: 5-30cm
Connector: Straight
Available: modDIY (19cm and 30cm), ebay sintech.cn (5+cm), aliexpress (5+cm)
Not a lot to say about this one. A few people have used it and so far I haven't heard of any problems. It seems very similar to the one Thermaltake is using, so maybe sintech is actually producing the Thermaltake riser.
Internally I would suspect it to be similar to the LiHeat riser, though it looks thinner on pictures. Sintech also makes custom risers to order and has a website where a right-angle riser with shielded ribbon cables is shown.
Adexelec:
Price: ~80$
Shielded: Yes and no.
Length: Varies:
Connector: Straight, Left-angle
Available: Only from manufacturer.
This company made the risers for the Orthrus Prototype, in which they seem to work great. It seems like their risers are only available made to order.
Samtech:
Price: ?
Shielded: Yes, using twin-axial cables.
Length: 30cm, other lengths available.
Connector: Straight
Available: Only from manufacturer
This riser seems to be very similar to the 3M one, but with thicker cables and longer PCBs. Firewolfy tested it here.
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