Hi guys, I changed my motherboard and now both cards have like 0.5 mm space between them, practicaly touching each other and since here is summer i'm kinda worried about the temps since touching the backplate of the main board it burns my finger easily so i was testing two of those PCIE risers cables that minning rigs use and it works fine outside the case :D but i noticed the second card doesn't need to be connected to any pcie to work properly only requires the data cable to the main board, would be ok to use it like that?, in that case what is the function of the pcie connector aside from proving a way to mount the card to the motherboard?.
 
Or i should leave it as it is and temps are not a problem?. Ambient temp around 35°C (95°F)
My case is a Matrexx 55 Mesh, it has 3 coolers on the front, 2 on top for the aio and 1 in the back, also a 3090 ftw3. Here a picture taken from the internet so illustrate the setup.
 

BizSAR
Are you using the second card? It's not required to be used unless you want surround sound.

Yep using both.
 
After a quick test, both cards being outside get hotter so... will keep them inside since even a little hot ariflow is a lot better than nothing at all lol.
 
Btw, i read about some people having issues with the mining rig risers, i didn't experience nothing at all, everything sounded good no problem. (5600x, x570 tuf, 3090 ftw3, seasonic 750w) using around 600w i guess (cyberpunk with rt), blasting a 5.1 config with beefy speakers.