USB riser is a mandatory attribute of mining rigs on video cards, because it allows you to connect to one motherboard 8 or more video cards with the necessary air gap for better video card cooling. Earlier we've already written about the history of risers and their modifications (The evolution of the development of risers for mining. Which USB riser to choose for mining cryptocurrency), where the last version at the time was the ninth. Today we will tell you about the USB Riser model number 10.
The first time you look at the version 10 riser you will notice a large selection of connectors for additional power, which has been seen before on the version 8 risers. But instead of the SATA power connector, the v008 uses a 6-pin PCIE connector. The other PCIE and MOLEX auxiliary power connectors remained unchanged. See this article for the reason why the SATA power connectors were dropped: Why the Serial ATA power connector (SATA) is so dangerous for assembling mining rigs
As an important change, we believe that increasing the number of capacitors in the power network video card, which will affect the stability of video cards, especially powerful with power consumption over 200W, in networks with unstable power quality and not the highest quality power supplies.
Owners of high-end graphics cards or simply heavy graphics cards that occupy several slots and can weigh more than 3kg, also will appreciate the reinforced metal PCIEx16 connector, as well as thicker textolite of the riser.
Another notable innovation of the 10 version of Riser is control LEDs showing power supply through the line 12V and 3.3V on the riser itself and on the PCIEx1 adapter board. That allows you to monitor the USB riser. According to the number of control LEDs there are two versions: with two LEDs 12V and 3.3V and with 7 LEDs, where additional 5 LEDs show the supply voltage to all power lines of the video card.
Gold-plated USB connectors and proprietary voltage divider from Foxconn should also be noted, but of great practical value compared to previous versions of the risers these innovations have no.
The disadvantages of the 10 version of the riser are the price, which is about twice as much as the simpler and more popular 6 version of the riser, as well as the LEDs, which can not be turned off without a soldering iron and which turn your mining rig into a Christmas tree. Shining and blinking of the Mining Rig in all colors of the rainbow is not a drawback for everyone, but the impossibility to turn off the LEDs with the switch on the riser in our opinion is one of the unpleasant things that lead the customers to refuse to buy this particular model.
Recommendations: We can recommend to buy USB Riser v010-X for owners of mining regs with top level video cards with the power consumption of 200W or more. For more budget videocards there is not much sense to overpay for version 10 and it is better to buy time-proven version 6, unless you need additional features to control your equipment with the help of control LEDs.
