A lack of effort?

[BigGunn]

This last month when ordering parts for my first solo PC build i really noticed a major issue with parts manufacturers. It seems to me that either i'm missing a necessity for the components to be setup and designed in this fashion or the companies just don't care. I am posting this in the graphics card sub section because graphics cards for the most part are the biggest offenders of the design issue. Why in gods green earth are they upside down when installed in the bulk of all cases. I understand that in some micro rigs this isn't the case but for most cases on the market they install face down due to the way the motherboard is positioned.

Why if you are going to go to all that hard work to make a good looking product with now LED's cool heat sinks and all sorts of cool features make it face down in the case. Mind you this doesn't just apply to graphics cards, rather it simply typifies what i believe is wrong with the design. For such a high ticket item in this market you would think they would make a greater effort to show off the product.

This simply rubbed me the wrong way and still does. I have a beautiful H440 for a case, rampage IV gene MB with nice red LED corsair fans and yet bam right in the view of the case window you have my sound card and video card derping out with each other to see who looks worse.

 

[MadShadow]

I couldn't agree more. Honestly, Pci-e needs an update, where we can see the gpu cooler facing up. The best you can do now is slap a backplate on.

 

[Wraith]

I used to think about this, but if you take into account that all cases were and still are designed to a industry standard and the roll of cooling your GPU which is why it's fan face down in the first place it makes perfect sense. I agree with you I'd much rather see the fan and shroud than the PCB when looking through my window. But I guess a back plate is as good as we'll get for now at least, unless you want to go down the PCI riser route and have the card else where on display in your case.

 

[MadShadow]

Now I think about it, having the fan face up means drawing warm air from the cpu. I really don't know the solution. This was created back when gpu coolers were tiny metal heatsinks, so it didn't matter what you showed off. But today gpu coolers have changed, but the industry standard has not.

 

[SuB]

Because the ATX form factor used to be LAID DOWN...

It's all about the expenses of changing the form factor and no-one is prepared to change that, look how much people starting crying when they started saying Motherboards will come with CPU's attached soon!!??

The fact of the matter is, it cannot and won't be changed any time soon. As for pulling hot air from your CPU? if your cpu is blowing it's air towards your gpu then that's not a good thing anyway!! lol

There are plenty of inverted ATX cases about if you look

 

[BigGunn]

GPU for factors change chip facing and die cuts all the time. Each card is designed out from start to finish its not like they just keep going with a cookie cutter finish for every single card. To say its to expensive to do a little more design work making it look good in a case install is a bit strange. They take and spend the money to design cool looking cards yet when it comes to spending a little time upfront and reworking the positing of a new card that's going to cost to much for R&D.

The over fit and finish of a product is equally important in this market. Most of the people i know buying a case or many other components make purchases to help keep and overall look for the new PC. The market has evolved past a niche spot and into the mainstream, if your going to decorate your product do it in a way that can be seen and enjoyed by the end user. Don't make it look good so when i open the box for the first time before i install it i think neat looks good there but dog shit in the case.

 

[jamesriley94]

I do understand your point, but I don't think it's down to a lack of effort.

For things to change it would require a change in motherboards, cases, graphics cards and probably a variety of other things depending on what they actually decided to redesign the ATX standard to.

If anything, the fact that manufacturers have started making graphics cards with backplates, matte black PCBs and various other reasonable coloured PCBs show that they actually have put effort in to the best of their abilities, but just making do with the situation they're in.

I don't think it will be too long before things do start to change on a large scale though. There seems to be very little need these days for RAM modules to be so large, and with more advances in CPU technology and power delivery, I don't think it will be long before the standard needs redesigning.

As we've seen from ITX boards, the power delivery systems don't need to be anywhere near the size they are on full ATX boards to still get great performance, but due to the standards, the space is there so they may as well use it.

 

[BigGunn]

Ahh see this is the response i was wondering about, i was curious if the ATX for factor required the downward facing dye set because of internal framework. If it is indeed the case that it has to be positioned and fit on the for argument and clarity sake downward side of the card then that makes total sense for that particular component. If however they can keep the same board layout yet place components on the top of the card instead without changing the board and place the heat shield facing up that's where i see and take issue. Thanks for the reply James

 

[Davva2004]

Buy a PCI-E 16x riser cable and mount your GPU anywhere you want!

 

[Tiuqu]

Well, since its topic related in a way, I'm gonna ask something...

When you look at EVERY SINGLE PICTURE of "vapor chamber" you can see the fluid on bottom core side, getting heated up and doing magicks...

but when you put that gpu onto mobo, it's obviously upside down, therefore gravity...

so how does it work then? and even tho it performs "okay", it would perform FAR BETTER if it would be oriented like on EVERY picture, right? :mellow:

 

[SuB]

Well, since its topic related in a way, I'm gonna ask something...

When you look at EVERY SINGLE PICTURE of "vapor chamber" you can see the fluid on bottom core side, getting heated up and doing magicks...

but when you put that gpu onto mobo, it's obviously upside down, therefore gravity...

so how does it work then? and even tho it performs "okay", it would perform FAR BETTER if it would be oriented like on EVERY picture, right? :mellow:

vapour chambers, from my understanding, are a similar design to heatpipes and because of them all being inverted they have a 'wick' in them which makes them work against gravity. Kind of like something designed to draw the hot 'liquid' away from the heat source into the cooler area of the card, kinda magic when you think about it.

They would of course work FAR better the correct way up, but it's just not an option with the standard ATX form factor

 

[Kushiro]

Just a though anyone want try and mod an nzxt switch 810 back panel, as it look removable, if you can remove it and flip it over you have yourself an upside down or on this threads standing a rightside up motherboard. Of course some drilling will likely be necessary too. You prob wont be able to use some of the top fan mounts anymore but meh.

 

[vorticalbox]

would it really be that hard to build on the other side and then just pass the PCI connectors though?

if you had it the other way the fan would need to pull air up and not blow down, thermodynamics and all.