Why Grafics Card UpsideDown?

[miguelcotaque]

i just was asking me why do the grafics card goes upside down ? and why do company makes them look good if they will be upside down ? forgive me if theres one that goes up XD

 

[Mousemonkey]

That's a question I asked years ago and the only answer I got back that seemed logical was that the original design was for a PC that laid flat so the motherboard was on the bottom and it wouldn't matter which way round the GPU's were orientated and it's just never been changed.

 

[jitpublisher]

They make them that way so you have a nice flat surface to set your beer while you are working inside the case. If the fans and stuff were on the top of the card, your beer can might fall over and spill inside the case.

 

[Mousemonkey]

They make them that way so you have a nice flat surface to set your beer while you are working inside the case. If the fans and stuff were on the top of the card, your beer can might fall over and spill inside the case.

:lol: OK so now I have two logical answers!

 

[ares1214]

ive always just assumed it was because cold air is on the bottom, therefore by the fan beings on the bottom, it takes in cold air, and puts it out the rear. If it was "right side up" then it would be pulling hot air that was being exhausted down, and therfore would decrease cooling.

 

[Fetal]

putting it on the oven wont provide much cool air even, thee down below.

 

[Mousemonkey]

ive always just assumed it was because cold air is on the bottom, therefore by the fan beings on the bottom, it takes in cold air, and puts it out the rear. If it was "right side up" then it would be pulling hot air that was being exhausted down, and therfore would decrease cooling.

That part of HSF design has only been around for a few years but my old Matrox Millennium still had its GPU "underneath" back in '95 when fans were not fitted or needed.

 

[ares1214]

well the concept still stands, except a while back i guess they just didnt think of putting the hot air out the rear?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

can anyone give us the actual answer to this? you would think they would put it the other way up, as heat rises, it would be a little better for cooling? My Audigy is upsider down also.

 

[FunSurfer]

The fan and heatsink should be on the bottom because less dust will settle there and clog the air paths and cooling fins. The dust tends settle on top side of all stuff.

 

[Crashman]

i just was asking me why do the grafics card goes upside down ? and why do company makes them look good if they will be upside down ? forgive me if theres one that goes up XD

I see a lot of people guessing, well, I actually know the answer. Actually, most "old folks" who worked with computurs 15 or more years ago probably do.

We used to have ISA slots. The cards were right-side-up. When PCI was being developed, designers wanted to give builders a choice of using up to six PCI cards or six ISA cards from a single 8-slot AT case. To geth PCI and ISA to serve the same slot hole in the case, the PCI slots were placed between the ISA slots. Then, to get them to align with the hole, they were made upside-down.

With this design you could have an ISA card one slot above the PCI card and still have enough room between them to prevent shorts, and motherboard designers didn't have to take away one slot to add the other.

AGP followed PCI design, the PCIe followed AGP design.

Now that you know it's mostly historical, would you like to know what a horses butt has to do with the size of the space shuttle?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Now that you know it's mostly historical, would you like to know what a horses butt has to do with the size of the space shuttle?

Yes please! :lol:

 

[Crashman]

Yes please! :lol:

According to The Discovery Channel, wagons were made to fit within the rut created by two horses walking side-by-side, which is a function of the horse's width. Train tracks were then based on the width of that rut, train cars based on the stable width accommodated by the track, train tunnels based on the width of the car, and the Space Shuttle's booster engines based on the width of the tunnel.

 

[Crashman]

If we install it with the cooler part facing up then more dust will get in the fan making it less effective very quickly. And all the major part of a gpu like transistor.actual chip are present in the cooler side if dust fall on them then it can cause problem as compared to dust falling in the flat side.

While that may be true, it's coincidental. The one reason PCI was upside-down was so that it could co-exist with ISA using the same expansion slot on the case.

Intel actually designed BTX with the cards flipped over, which makes PCIe topside-up, so it's obvious that Intel (the designer of both ATX and BTX) thought it would be a good idea.

 

[miguelcotaque]

WELL I APRECIATE ALL YOUR REPLIES IT SEEMS TO BE A PRETTY COMMON QUESTION THE MOST ACCURED REPLY WAS CRASHMAN (TO FIT PCI AND AGP ) THE OTHERS MENTION ABOUT COOLING AND DUST I DO BELIVE THIS CAN MAKE AN IMPROVEMENT BY POTING THEM UPSIDEDOWN BUT I DON´T THINNK THIS WILL BE AS GOOD AS MAYBE 1°C ALSO THERES A EASY SOLUCION FOR THAT AND WE CAN CLEARLY SEE IT ON THE GTX 470

THERES A HOLE THAT CAN BE ACING DOWN AND GET COLD AIR ! XD

 

[Crashman]

WELL I APRECIATE ALL YOUR REPLIES IT SEEMS TO BE A PRETTY COMMON QUESTION THE MOST ACCURED REPLY WAS CRASHMAN (TO FIT PCI AND AGP ) THE OTHERS MENTION ABOUT COOLING AND DUST I DO BELIVE THIS CAN MAKE AN IMPROVEMENT BY POTING THEM UPSIDEDOWN BUT I DON´T THINNK THIS WILL BE AS GOOD AS MAYBE 1°C ALSO THERES A EASY SOLUCION FOR THAT AND WE CAN CLEARLY SEE IT ON THE GTX 470

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/1287/asus_gtx470_back.jpg

THERES A HOLE THAT CAN BE ACING DOWN AND GET COLD AIR ! XD

The extra holes in the card you showed are to allow more air to the top card when the face of that card is blocked by another card.

Like I said, Intel designed BTX "flipped over" specifically so that cards would be pretty-side-up. Their rationale was that putting a cooling tunnel through the center of the case would keep the CPU and GPU cooler.

But BTX never "caught on" and we're now left with the problem of cards having airflow blocked by other cards.

 

[JohnnyChrist]

While that may be true, it's coincidental. The one reason PCI was upside-down was so that it could co-exist with ISA using the same expansion slot on the case.

Intel actually designed BTX with the cards flipped over, which makes PCIe topside-up, so it's obvious that Intel (the designer of both ATX and BTX) thought it would be a good idea.

Were those "Inverted ATX" cases (Lian Li made some) based on a similar idea?

 

[miguelcotaque]

Best answer selected by miguelcotaque.

 

[NeelsLappies69]

ok so I looked at a few reviews about this and the most logical explanation I can think of is dust build up inside the box,
who of you ever had to remove the GPU cooling system to clean out dust? I opened my old GPU (that I had for 2 years) to look if there was any dust build up in it, only on the bottom of the GPU...

I think the main designer of a GPU actually thought of this

And if it was up right the GPU will absorb all the hot air from the motherboard and CPU fan...