Riser board

Updated: 11/13/2018 by Computer Hope

A riser board is a circuit board that gives a computer motherboard the option for additional expansion cards to be added to the computer. Desktop computer riser boards were used with LPX, NLX, and some ATX motherboards. LPX motherboards had a riser board slot on the motherboard, NLX motherboards plugged into a riser board, and Intel had an ATX motherboard with riser board in December 1999. The ATX riser board supported either two or three PCI (peripheral component interconnect) cards, but never supported AGP (accelerated graphics port).

Today, riser boards are rarely used or found in desktop computers, which mostly use an ATX motherboard with expansion slots on the motherboard. However, there are still many servers and routers that use riser boards. Below, is a picture of a 4-slot riser board used with an early Compaq computers. It plugged into the motherboard and gives the computer the ability to add four expansion cards.

Compaq computer riser board

Hardware terms, Motherboard terms