New case (maybe with PCIe riser?)

[csendesmark]

Hello Forum,
I did think about the upcoming Geforce 50 series, which would like to have.
So I checked up what 4090 and 4080 cards are around, an noticed my grim situation: there are only a few of them can fit into a 3 slot space.
My current Sapphire Pulse 7900XT uses 2.7 slot in 3 slot space, so it is "ok" as it is.

I could go for a water-cooled card like the AORUS GeForce RTX™ 4090 XTREME WATERFORCE 24G or GeForce RTX™ 4090 SUPRIM LIQUID 24G for example.
That maybe a good solution, but I might still need a new case to receive the GPU cooler water block. (I think my CMS-693-KKN1 can't take any - really not sure)
Then it is a FRACTAL DESIGN Define 7 XL
Or maybe get a case which has a riser to move the card to the side, which helps a lot with the heat too
HYTE Y60 (this is example for the kind of riser I looking for)

This case minus the plexiglass and the rgb leds . I like the idea of the PCIe riser with the shape of
..┌─
..|
.─┘
This could be perfect.
Are PCIe risers reliable?
I heard some nasty stories regarding failty cables getting burnt and killing devices.

What I looking for? Well basically that FRACTAL DESIGN Define 7 XL offers

• E-ATX compatibility
• 3 top + front 3 +1 back, 140mm fan places
• At least one 5.25” drive mount preferably two
• Preferably metal box and no plexiglass.
• 16× PCIe 5.0 riser

I am happy for any advice, even if it not exactly what I listed.

 

[Harlow]

Are PCIe risers reliable?

I've never used PCIe risers, but as an electronics design engineer, I'm wary of adding long cables with extra capacitance/inductance/resistance in the feed to a fast GPU. My motto when designing systems is to keep data and power connections as short as possible. I'd be much happier using a GTX 4090 plugged directly into the motherboard as originally designed, and not letting it hang off long cables with possible degradation and data skew on fast clock waveforms. I'm sure others may disagree. There are probably many thousands of happy users with GPU risers that work fine.
I doubt all risers are created equal. Some might be better than others. Check reviews.

failty cables getting burnt and killing devices.

Cards are restricted to 75W maximum from the +12V rail in the PCIe slot on the motherboard. The bulk of the power comes from the "12VHPWR" or "12V-2x6" connection on big GPUs. I think it more likely the external +12V connections direct from the PSU will be more likely to overheat.

 

[csendesmark]

I'd be much happier using a GTX 4090 plugged directly into the motherboard as originally designed

If there will be a "slim-fit" 3> slot thick card, I will go with that!
On the other hand, you can see the trend with the vertical GPU cases, just today we seen 1 case review and 1 news on TPU regarding vertical support.