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Why can't they ask me before designing mobos?

R

River Side

Senior member
Now which brainiac designed the CPU slot right underneath the Power Supply intake and beside the rear fan intake?

The CPU is starved for air competing with these two fans.. why not design boards with the CPU slot right near the bottom directly in the path of the intake fan?
 
The CPU is not starved for air. Nor does it compete with the other fans. 😕 Having two fans moving a few CFM away from the CPU doesn't decrease the air pressure by any measurable amount. Cooler air is simply drawn from below. Hot air goes up - so it makes sense to have the hottest component at the top.

There are also some good reasons to have the CPU near the bottom - as shown by more recent upside-down ATX designs and BTX design. But that doesn't mean that every single motherboard manu is retarded for following the ATX spec.

Ed spelling
 
It's a standardized specification, they can't change it on a whim. When the ATX formfactor was created, cpus weren't hot enough to need active cooling, so they just put a passive heatsink on them and they placed it near the psu so that it could suck the warm air right off. It allowed computers to use less fans and be more quiet. Of course, they didn't forsee how hot cpus would get in the future (and therefore how the formfactor would backfire in terms of quieting and cooling), but it was a good idea at the time.
 
having a PSU at the bottom doesn't solve the problem that the CPU sits in the hottest part of the case.. why not have the CPU slot right behind the hard drives, that way cold intake air will flow over it keeping it much cooler.. have the PCI slots etc to the top.. a lot of us don't even use anything PCI anymore so they remain empty..
 
Let's think back a moment.....

AT form factor, CPU was in the lower right corner of the board. Bad for several reasons:
1) As the CPUs got faster and needed bigger heatsinks they got in the way. AT was a smaller case design than we typically have now so depending on the exact case and location of the CPU socket you would have trouble even getting a big enough heatsink in there in the first place. To counteract some of this you needed a very annoying fan (mind you they were only 40 or 50mm fans, aweful things)
2) Most cases then didn't have front fans (and typically not much for vents) so the airflow down there wasn't all that great. CPU heat buildup.
3) Cables to floppy and HD (power and data alike) had a tendency to get stuck in the CPU fan. Needless to say not good on the fan or the wires.

ATX form factor came out and provided us with:
1) More room. You could fit a larger heatsink with a slower fan to get the same cooling power, and didn't have to worry about whether this particular mobo and case would actually work together or not depending on HD bay and CPU socket locations.
2) Better airflow. Heat gets blown off CPU and at first the PSU was the only exhaust, so the heat would then get sucked out of the case. Later a rear case fan (and sometimes a second) got introduced to enhance this effect and help the PSU run cooler. No more CPU heat buildup.
3) Much less of a risk of cables getting stuck in the CPU fan. Only one to worry about was the ATX cable which wasn't hard to keep away at all.

ATX doesn't sound bad at all now does it? 😉 And no the CPU fan isn't starved for air, it isn't trying to pull away from the rear fans it is just taking air that is flowing towards the back and pushing it against the heatsink before it gets exhausted to cool the CPU. Little if any competition there.
 
There are all kinds of options if you dont like standard ATX- the silverstone tj06 is very nice and has spawned copy cats that are less expensive if money is an issue.
 
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