Pci-E x 16 extensions

[ThreeDog12]

Hi, I am moving my build into the thermaltake core p3... There were alot of reviews saying to buy your own riser because the included one is garbage... I have been looking at these and I just can't seem to find any with decent reviews... the best I could find was the Deepcool PEC 250... I have a gtx 1070 and would hope that the extension wouldn't hinder my game performance... thanks!

 

[Vogner16]

I thought you were talking about PCIE power extensions and was thinking... how would that possibly hinder performance... but I got ya now.

those risers basically all are the same from what I understand. you may see 1% performance drop but I'm sure you wont notice that gaming. diff of 99 fps and 100...

just get one that matches your colors and is the correct length.

 

[ThreeDog12]

In alot of the reviews people talked about crashes and blue screens with certain ones

 

[kanewolf]

PCIe is pretty picky about timing, cross-talk, and other signal conditioning issues. Adding X cm of bare circuit trace doesn't help any of those parameters. PCIe extenders are just a bad idea IMO.

 

[ThreeDog12]

Is there a chance of it working?

 

[Vogner16]

if you have pcie 3 slots they have plenty of bandwidth and I cant imagine even a super cruddy connector limits that bandwidth enough to affect fps in games

 

[ThreeDog12]

Thanks! Any idea to which one I should buy?

 

[kanewolf]

if you have pcie 3 slots they have plenty of bandwidth and I cant imagine even a super cruddy connector limits that bandwidth enough to affect fps in games

It has nothing to do with bandwidth. It has to do with signal quality and power delivery. Those traces all have resistance and capacitance. That impacts signal quality to the card and the ability to provide the 75W that the spec allows. That is why so many people have issues with extenders.

 

[Vogner16]

if you have pcie 3 slots they have plenty of bandwidth and I cant imagine even a super cruddy connector limits that bandwidth enough to affect fps in games

It has nothing to do with bandwidth. It has to do with signal quality and power delivery. Those traces all have resistance and capacitance. That impacts signal quality to the card and the ability to provide the 75W that the spec allows. That is why so many people have issues with extenders.

it has to do with bandwidth if your trying to push a 1080 through PCIEx16 1.0 slot. version 2.0 has more bandwidth than 1.0 and now we have 3.0 all of these are as a result of the larger section of the connector and their quality. if you get poor signal from a long cable with high resistance this will lower the throughput rate of that data connection thus lowering the bandwidth to the card. this is a similar theory to the new NVidia SLI bridge theory and why amd when away from a crossfire bridge years ago. the physical bridge interconnect is poor for bandwidth compared to the direct socket XDMA used now as a result of higher in socket bandwidth via PCIE 3.0.

the power delivery is a big issue for certain cards. some graphics cards use the full 75W from the board. for example the reference RX 480 used all 75W from the board and all 75W from its 6 pin, however several aftermarket boards such as the ASUS and XFX GTR use a 8 pin power delivery direct from the PSU and as a result only draw around 50W from the motherboard.

IF you have a card that draws power from the motherboard an extender CAN have issues. IF you have a well designed card you will NOT.

thus this is why I explained the bandwidth as a potential issue and not power delivery, but you have a valid point as it is possible to get a card that will shut down under load with an extender.

back to the original question of which one to buy? @ThreeDog12, just get something that matches it would take a ton of research to make a perfect decision and I'm not willing to put that into it. if you have a decent card with what most would call an overkill power delivery system then you will not have an issue.

 

[ThreeDog12]

Ok thanks, so how could I find my card (msi 1070 gaming x) uses the full 75 watts from the board... and what exactly did you mean when you said "overkill power system"? Sorry if these are stupid questions I just really want to make my computer look as cool as I can

 

[pete_101]

You may find this article interesting, it's a few years old but I think it's still relevant. http://www.overclock.net/t/1427731/pci-express-extender-cables-benchmarked

 

[Vogner16]

Ok thanks, so how could I find my card (msi 1070 gaming x) uses the full 75 watts from the board... and what exactly did you mean when you said "overkill power system"? Sorry if these are stupid questions I just really want to make my computer look as cool as I can

that extender cable testing data was exactly as I was expecting the data to read. +- 1% performance. no crash from power delivery aside from the one test where he tied several extenders together.

to be honest man your reading to much into this. don't overclock your gpu super hard and your gonna be fine. I'm not gonna pick a specific extender out for you. just go find one that you think matches your color scheme, is long enough, and buy it.

 

[ThreeDog12]

Thanks for all the imputed guys! I appreciate it... pretty exited to see how this new case is gonna turn out!

 

[kanewolf]

The problem with that article on extenders is it is using first generation PCIe. PCIe 3.0 has changed the signalling speed significantly. That is why there are a lot more problems in new boards with extenders.

All I can say is good luck, and I wouldn't do it.