ASUS flip-reverse it

[Steve]

X-bit labs are reporting that ASUS have developed a GeForce 6600 graphics board with the GPU on the other side of the PCB. Violating the ATX spec, the board was engineered with cooling as the paramount consideration and HEXUS believe it could certainly work brilliantly, given the right chassis.

All the typical graphics cards usually have their graphics processing unit (GPU) installed on the front-side, which means that when installed into a conventional tower computer case, the GPU does not dissipate heat in the most efficient way. Hot air typically tends to go up, which means that part of the heat conducted by the heat-sink usually returns to the GPU, which reduces overall cooling efficiency. ASUS installed graphics chip and memory on the backside of the print-circuit board to ensure that the heat goes away from the card.

[X-Bit Labs]

[iMc]

About time too.

Is it more difficult to produce a PCB this way?

[Johnnyboy]

This might allow a two slot cooler to be fitted in a Shuttle. Usually you are limited to one slot, with teh HSF hard against the case.

It has my vote.

[J]

[BoomAM]

Its a pity that no other manufacturers will follow suit with their cards.
I remember reading about this card ages ago, and Asus said it was expensive/difficult to do. It'll be a while before we start seeing a more widespread adoption of this type of 'cooling'.

[kalniel]

So why don't people turn their PCs upsidedown?

Don't tell me, the coffee cup holder doesn't work that way

[Steve]

Its a pity that no other manufacturers will follow suit with their cards.
I remember reading about this card ages ago, and Asus said it was expensive/difficult to do. It'll be a while before we start seeing a more widespread adoption of this type of 'cooling'.

To be honest I personally don't want to see that many implementations of it. Firstly it'll make it incompatible with some setups and secondly you can already do a similar thing with heatpipes and rear-mounted coolers, which is probably a cheaper way of achieving the same goal.

[BoomAM]

All you'd have to do is swap the position of the optical drives.
Some cases come with the mobo board already inverted, like the Lian-Li PCV-1000/2000 range.

[BoomAM]

To be honest I personally don't want to see that many implementations of it. Firstly it'll make it incompatible with some setups and secondly you can already do a similar thing with heatpipes and rear-mounted coolers, which is probably a cheaper way of achieving the same goal.

But its not achieving the same goal though is it? Its just a 'work around', and a poor one at that.
No number of heatpipes can stop the scientific fact that heat rises.

And it wouldnt really mess all that much with alot of setups. Most modern boards have PCI or PCI-E slots between the main PCI-Ex16 slot and the CPU area, and older ones usually have enough room behind the main PCI-E/AGP Slot to allow a single slot cooler to be used in the fashion that Asus have done.
Only space limited setups and extremely specific setups would be affected by the change.
Its a good idea. A simple (in placement terms) idea, that'll help remedy some of the heat problems that current gfx cards have.

The more manufacturers that adopt the idea, and the more mobo manufacturers (helps that Asus are both the pioneer of this idea, and a mobo manufacturer), means that in time it'll get cheaper & easyier to do.

[Steve]

The problem as I see it is not the idea, but the fact that it isn't the standardised way of constructing a component that goes in a PCI/PCIe/AGP slot, and it's when we start moving away from standards that we run into trouble.

As a concept I think it's good, but I'd rather not see a number of manufacturers start adopting this idea resulting in a tonne of "will this fit in my case/on my motherboard" type posts in forums around the web.

[Jonny]

Good idea! Wouldnt work for me though, I'm too limited on space that side. Theres literally 1 or 2mm between my graphics card and CPU cooler.
But for the most part, that must be a better cooling solution!

Will be interested to hear more on this.

[herulach]

Theres also the point that on most nforce 3/4 boards the clips that hold the ram in already have little to no clearance, i doubt somehting like this would fit my board, infact i know it wouldnt with the big cpu cooler in place.

[BoomAM]

The problem as I see it is not the idea, but the fact that it isn't the standardised way of constructing a component that goes in a PCI/PCIe/AGP slot, and it's when we start moving away from standards that we run into trouble.

As a concept I think it's good, but I'd rather not see a number of manufacturers start adopting this idea resulting in a tonne of "will this fit in my case/on my motherboard" type posts in forums around the web.

We'll have to agree to disagree here.
But, FYI, Forums are there to discuss things, and tech forums are there to discuss 'problems' people are having. So people posting about 'will it fit' still fits within the orignal idea of what a forum is for.

[sanchezxxx]

Science wise this sounds right but with coolermaster wavemaster you can just flip the whole motherboard around for more efficient cooling.

[divinemadness]

the scientific fact that heat rises.

[pedantic]'Heat' does not rise at all, it is an energy and thus cannot move up, down, left or right. Hot air will rise above colder air due to being less dense (as a result of more heat energy spreading the particles more) but 'Heat' itself doesn't[/pedantic]

[Steve]

We'll have to agree to disagree here.
But, FYI, Forums are there to discuss things, and tech forums are there to discuss 'problems' people are having. So people posting about 'will it fit' still fits within the orignal idea of what a forum is for.

I know what you mean, but my point was more people needing to make such posts in the first place.

Still, we'll be here for them.

[Tobeman]

Wouldn't have/won't BTX make this.. "obsolete"? Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought a standard gfx card in a BTX setup would do the same as this? Surely if we all had these cards and then BTX became the standard (heh) all that hard R&D work is worth nothing?