A riser card is a printed circuit board that gives a computer motherboard the option for additional expansion cards to be added to the computer. [1]
A riser card is a printed circuit board that gives a computer motherboard the option for additional expansion cards to be added to the computer. [1]
A riser is usually connected to the mainboard's slot through an edge connector, though some, such as NLX and Next Unit of Computing Extreme, instead are plugged into an edge connector on the mainboard itself. In general, the main purpose is to change the orientation of the expansion cards such that they fit a limited space within casing. [2]
Riser cables are an evolution of riser cards utilizing improved specifications (specifically the use of PCI Express) and better materials, which allows further distances of data transmission and greater orientation flexibility than traditional riser cards. These cables use a Riser Card PCB and an edge connector on each side of the cable, with a copper alloy surrounded by a plastic insulator that allows for the further data transmission distances. [3]
Such cables are now commonly used in modern household gaming PC's to allow for different positioning of PCI Express Cards and GPU cards in a computer case. This allows for customization and the addition of additional parts to suit the creator or builders needs. They can additionally be installed into vertical brackets to function similarly to a riser card, but with further flexibility. They are also used in small-form-factor PC's to allow for a GPU to be positioned behind a computer motherboard. [4]
There are only a few specified standards in regards to riser designs. Most use PCI Express edge connectors for data transfer. This allows for maximum data transfer speeds of 32 GB/s when using PCIe 4.0, along with 75W of power to be delivered from the host device. [4] Other specifications used for these cards include ExpressCard and PCI-X. [5]
Riser cards have applications in both industrial and consumer spaces. [2]
In servers, height for expansion cards is limited by rack units. A unit (U) is the traditional measurement used for server height. One server unit is equal to 1.75", 2U servers are 3.5", and so forth. Traditional 1U riser cards each fit 1 PCI slot, and 2U riser cards can fit 2 or 3 PCI slots, depending on whether they obstruct access to any PCI-E slots. [2]
In small-form-factor (SFF) computers built by computer enthusiasts, PCI-E riser cards are used in a similar sense to a server application. They are used to sandwich a graphics card closer to a computer motherboard and are made to the same heights as server units for most applications. The additional flexibility afforded by PCI Express can allow for a GPU to be placed "behind" the mainboard, allowing space-efficient orientation without limiting the GPU's airflow. [2]
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is a parallel expansion card standard, designed for attaching a video card to a computer system to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. It was originally designed as a successor to PCI-type connections for video cards. Since 2004, AGP was progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express (PCIe), which is serial, as opposed to parallel; by mid-2008, PCI Express cards dominated the market and only a few AGP models were available, with GPU manufacturers and add-in board partners eventually dropping support for the interface in favor of PCI Express.
A backplane or backplane system is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used to connect several printed circuit boards together to make up a complete computer system. Backplanes commonly use a printed circuit board, but wire-wrapped backplanes have also been used in minicomputers and high-reliability applications.
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 8088-based IBM PC, including the IBM PC/XT as well as IBM PC compatibles.
A motherboard is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.
PC Card is a parallel peripheral interface for laptop computers and PDAs.
In computing, an expansion card is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot on a computer's motherboard to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as a riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard.
A graphics card is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a display device such as a monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to integrated graphics processor on the motherboard or the CPU. A graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs the necessary computations is the main component in a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to erroneously refer to the graphics card as a whole.
PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common motherboard interface for personal computers' graphics cards, sound cards, hard disk drive host adapters, SSDs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardware connections. PCIe has numerous improvements over the older standards, including higher maximum system bus throughput, lower I/O pin count and smaller physical footprint, better performance scaling for bus devices, a more detailed error detection and reporting mechanism, and native hot-swap functionality. More recent revisions of the PCIe standard provide hardware support for I/O virtualization.
ATX is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification, patented by David Dent in 1995 at Intel, to improve on previous de facto standards like the AT design. It was the first major change in desktop computer enclosure, motherboard and power supply design in many years, improving standardization and interchangeability of parts. The specification defines the dimensions; the mounting points; the I/O panel; and the power and connector interfaces among a computer case, a motherboard, and a power supply.
The Advanced Communications Riser, or ACR, is a form factor and technical specification for PC motherboard expansion slots. It is meant as a supplement to PCI slots, a replacement for the original Audio/modem riser (AMR) slots, and a competitor and alternative to Intel's communications and networking riser (CNR) slots.
ExpressCard, initially called NEWCARD, is an interface to connect peripheral devices to a computer, usually a laptop computer. The ExpressCard technical standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of expansion cards to insert in the slots. The cards contain electronic circuits and sometimes connectors for external devices. The ExpressCard standard replaces the PC Card standards.
PCI-X, short for Peripheral Component Interconnect eXtended, is a computer bus and expansion card standard that enhances the 32-bit PCI local bus for higher bandwidth demanded mostly by servers and workstations. It uses a modified protocol to support higher clock speeds, but is otherwise similar in electrical implementation. PCI-X 2.0 added speeds up to 533 MHz, with a reduction in electrical signal levels.
Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is the brand name for a now discontinued multi-GPU technology developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output. SLI is a parallel processing algorithm for computer graphics, meant to increase the available processing power.
A computer case, also known as a computer chassis, is the enclosure that contains most of the hardware of a personal computer. The components housed inside the case are referred as the internal hardware, while hardware outside the case are known as peripherals.
PC/104 is a family of embedded computer standards which define both form factors and computer buses by the PC/104 Consortium. Its name derives from the 104 pins on the interboard connector (ISA) in the original PC/104 specification and has been retained in subsequent revisions, despite changes to connectors. PC/104 is intended for specialized environments where a small, rugged computer system is required. The standard is modular, and allows consumers to stack together boards from a variety of COTS manufacturers to produce a customized embedded system.
The GeForce 8 series is the eighth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. The third major GPU architecture developed by Nvidia, Tesla represents the company's first unified shader architecture.
The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of chipsets designed by ATI for AMD Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others launched throughout the rest of 2008.
In computing, the motherboard form factor is the specification of a motherboard – the dimensions, power supply type, location of mounting holes, number of ports on the back panel, etc. Specifically, in the IBM PC compatible industry, standard form factors ensure that parts are interchangeable across competing vendors and generations of technology, while in enterprise computing, form factors ensure that server modules fit into existing rackmount systems. Traditionally, the most significant specification is for that of the motherboard, which generally dictates the overall size of the case. Small form factors have been developed and implemented.
The Fastra II is a desktop supercomputer designed for tomography. It was built in late 2009 by the ASTRA group of researchers of the IBBT VisionLab at the University of Antwerp and by Belgian computer shop Tones, in collaboration with Asus, a Taiwanese multinational computer product manufacturer, as the successor to the Fastra I.
SXM is a high bandwidth socket solution for connecting Nvidia Compute Accelerators to a system. Each generation of Nvidia Tesla since P100 models, the DGX computer series and the HGX boards come with an SXM socket type that realizes high bandwidth, power delivery and more for the matching GPU daughter cards. Nvidia offers these combinations as an end-user product e.g. in their models of the DGX system series. Current socket generations are SXM for Pascal based GPUs, SXM2 and SXM3 for Volta based GPUs, SXM4 for Ampere based GPUs, and SXM5 for Hopper based GPUs. These sockets are used for specific models of these accelerators, and offer higher performance per card than PCIe equivalents. The DGX-1 system was the first to be equipped with SXM-2 sockets and thus was the first to carry the form factor compatible SXM modules with P100 GPUs and later was unveiled to be capable of allowing upgrading to SXM2 modules with V100 GPUs.
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