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Why do they make video cards upside down?
- Thread starter avi85
- Start date
KoncreteAngel
Junior Member
The new btx case standard is supposted to fix that.
I just got my new Silverstone TJ-07 today. Going from a Silverstone TJ-06, I love the room, but miss the btx style. The TJ-07 can be converted into btx though. It just is a matter of repositioning the sliders for the removable mb tray. (It is a very flexible and easy-mod case) I just haven't had the strength to cut it yet or anything, too beautiful.
As far as my card temps go, there is no difference. I still have the stock cooler on though which takes the heat out anyway. If I were to still have my VF-900 on though, I bet some heat would just float up into the vc's pcb. Really, whether the card is right-side up or up-side down makes little to no difference, as long as you have good airflow. I'm going to get my radiator soon, so it really wont matter much.
I still think thought that btx looks more natrual and gives the HSF on the vc some attention. Maybe I'll do the modification once I've had it for a while. Right now its too new.
As far as my card temps go, there is no difference. I still have the stock cooler on though which takes the heat out anyway. If I were to still have my VF-900 on though, I bet some heat would just float up into the vc's pcb. Really, whether the card is right-side up or up-side down makes little to no difference, as long as you have good airflow. I'm going to get my radiator soon, so it really wont matter much.
I still think thought that btx looks more natrual and gives the HSF on the vc some attention. Maybe I'll do the modification once I've had it for a while. Right now its too new.
MmmSkyscraper
Diamond Member
Ika
Lifer
BTX didn't take off very well, but it did spawn some offshoots - Lian Li's PC1000V (or whatever it was called) had a backwards ATX configuration, in which the motherboard mounted on the left side panel. this put everything right-side up, and the window was placed on the right side. I've seen it in action and it works very well.
hardwareking
Senior member
but if the just put the pci-e interface on the other side of the card.They could sit right side up.
But then again its not such a big deal.
But then again its not such a big deal.
michal1980
Diamond Member
becasue 99% of the heat being removed is due to the fan/heatsink, flipped the card over won't change the temps much at all.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
It isn't as simple as that. If you look at the way a motherboard is designed, it takes into account that there will be nothing protruding from the back of the card closest to the cpu. If you were to all of a sudden have a dual slot cooler on the video card, it would get in the way of motherboard components, plus if it had a cooler that exhausted the heat, it wouldn't have room on the backplane for the exhaust.
BFG10K
Lifer
For AGP perhaps but PCIe motherboards seem to change that.
For instance my board has plenty of space either side because my PCIe x16 slot sits right in the middle of the PCI slots and the PCIe slots.
If I mounted my 7900 GTX's cooler on the opposite side of the PCB it wouldn't be a problem at all (other than covering up one PCIe slot but it does that already with PCI on the other side).
As for exhaust ports, I have three PCI slot covers that can be removed on that side.
Concillian
Diamond Member
Honestly, I think this is a tiny, tiny factor when considering actively cooled cards.
Airflow >>>>>>>>> convection / heat rising for cooling concerns.
The plus side of facing the cards downwards:
things can't drop in the fan and stop it from moving
less dust settling on the cooler when the fan is off
Better able to pull in cooler air from the bottom of the case (if the fan pulls air from the top, it will be close to the CPU cooler, and might be pulling warmer air right from the CPU cooler exhaust)
Heat rising is only one of the factors involved. It's quite possible that other factors completely offset any advantages of having the fan on the "top" side of the card.
I would never worry about this kind of thing in my case purchasing decisions. It's not like there is going to be anything significant to be gained anyway. Any differences would be a matter of tenths of a degree or something.
Airflow >>>>>>>>> convection / heat rising for cooling concerns.
The plus side of facing the cards downwards:
things can't drop in the fan and stop it from moving
less dust settling on the cooler when the fan is off
Better able to pull in cooler air from the bottom of the case (if the fan pulls air from the top, it will be close to the CPU cooler, and might be pulling warmer air right from the CPU cooler exhaust)
Heat rising is only one of the factors involved. It's quite possible that other factors completely offset any advantages of having the fan on the "top" side of the card.
I would never worry about this kind of thing in my case purchasing decisions. It's not like there is going to be anything significant to be gained anyway. Any differences would be a matter of tenths of a degree or something.
firewolfsm
Golden Member
Ya, but imagine a case where everything, the CPU, the GPU and most other heat sources are all very close. You could have two 120mm fans on top of each other as exhaust and it would cool everything.
What happens to the air after it's used to cool the HS on the GPU? Where does it leave the chassis?
The simple answer is that it can be trapped underneath the video card with nowhere to go. You can alleviate this problem with some smart ducting, but out of the box, the situation is far from optimal.
The Antec NSK2400 and the new P180/P180B have vented PCI slot covers to help with this, and the new P180/P180B lets you blow air across the video card and out the slot covers, simplifying things a lot if you want to duct the flow.
Why do they did it actually goes WAYYYY back. Back in the day computers had ISA slots and things where right side up. When they started adding additional fasters busses like Vesa and then PCI they put them upside down so you could have slots that could do either an old isa or a new what ever slot. Back then there was slot less integration for feature on motherboards so it was common to have sound, ethernet, modem, video card and multiple other cards so it made more of a difference. They have just follow the vesa/pci configuration since then for agp and pci-e cards cause it kept things simpler. To change things with out going the BTX route and putting the motherboard on the other side would require coordination between mb mfgs and card mfg and stocking and dealing with multiple parts for the old and new way of doing things. Over all not worth it for a minimal improvement in cooling.
VESA slots weren't upside down - PCI were the first ones to be like that. Besides, at the time, the usual computers were in desktop cases, with a tiny monitor on top - so it was just a matter of left or right, not up or down.
Anyway, convection is a VERY negligible factor in a fan cooled PC case.
Anyway, convection is a VERY negligible factor in a fan cooled PC case.
Inverted ATX and BTX both fix this problem. Lian-Li's Inverted ATX cases are just plain awesome. I have a PC-101B and PC-201B for 2 different comps and both have the video card heatsink on top, and a side fan above them to pull the air right off the card. In fact, they are both inverted ATX and the power supply is mounted on the bottom to create a seperate air chamber. This allows for even better cooling.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
Perhaps some, but not the newest Asus AM2 board.
http://usa.asus.com/100/images/products/1163/1163_l.jpg
Really, no matter how you look at it, it would have to become a spec or standard for it to take hold. So, until the change the ATX spec, I doubt that you'll upside down video cards in wide circulation.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
Interesting that you should mention that. IMO, the video card cooling is about the worst feature on my v1200+ in an otherwise fantastic case. The problem with the v1200+ is that there needs to be an exhaust vent out the top (which the PSU in a standard ATX case provides). As it is now, the heat just sits at the top of the case. Becasue of this, a HSF that exhausts the heat outside of the case is almost mandatory with a v1200. I see that with the PC-201B, Lian-Li has added a fan to the side of the case, which is a really good idea. I still am not totally convinced that having the PSU in the bottom is the best idea though, since instead of acting as a fan to remove heat it acts as a heat source at the bottom of everything.
Yes, the heated air from the video card rises, but I think that's better than having it stuck underneath the video card so that the air temps stay higher than they should be.
How is the PSU a heat source? Even if it was oriented such that the vents were on the top, the fan would certainly overcome any fanless convection. And with CPUs drawing the power that they do, they shouldn't be exhausting the heat anyway. Higher temps decrease service life and increase noise (fan speed varies wrt temperature).
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