# Powered or unpowered risers?

**URL:** <https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650>\
**Category:** Mining\
**Created:** [November 7, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650 "2016-11-07T15:54:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mrwiggles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6bbea6/32.png) [@mrwiggles](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/mrwiggles)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/1 "2016-11-07T15:54:55Z")

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Hello Fellow miners  
My motherboard board has 4x 16x pcie slots with a additional 6 pin cable for powering the pcie slots (  
Gigabyte Z87X-OC Motherboard ), I currently have 2 x rx 470 nitros and plan on getting 2 more inside a corsair 540 air case, i plan on modding the case to hold 4 cards so each card has enough room to breath.  
would i need powered 1x risers, or could i get 16x risers unpowered risers and connect the gpus that way.  
When i’m done mining i would like to use this rig for rendering in blender also.

My psu is a fractal design newton r3 platinum 1000w

Thanks in advance!

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**Author:** ![adaseb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@adaseb](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/adaseb)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/2 "2016-11-07T16:02:37Z")

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Always use powered risers, especially on any GPUs with only 1 PCIe connector

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**Author:** ![cascadiacrypto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/cascadiacrypto/32/745_2.png) [@cascadiacrypto](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/cascadiacrypto)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/3 "2016-11-07T16:38:56Z")

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More things have gone wrong using powered risers for me. I’d go with unpowered ESPECIALLY go if your motherboard has a molex connector which you are powering from the PSU. Too much power on the PCI-e bus is worse than not enough.

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**Author:** ![funnyboy027](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@funnyboy027](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/funnyboy027)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/4 "2016-11-08T14:07:52Z")

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The Asrock H81 pro BTC have the molex connector, so it’s better to use unpowered riser, isn’t it?

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**Author:** ![cascadiacrypto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/cascadiacrypto/32/745_2.png) [@cascadiacrypto](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/cascadiacrypto)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/5 "2016-11-08T19:58:18Z")

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> [@funnyboy027](#):
>
> The Asrock H81 pro BTC have the molex connector, so it’s better to use unpowered riser, isn’t it?

Yes. I think so. As I said, too much power on the PCI-e buss can be worse than not enough.

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**Author:** ![prada](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/prada/32/635_2.png) [@prada](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/prada)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/powered-or-unpowered-risers/7650/6 "2016-11-08T20:07:41Z")

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Always, but always, powered.