Why they make AGP card with the chip Pointing DOWNWARDS towards all the other PCI cards????

[Cancerman]

Why they make AGP card with the chip Pointing DOWNWARDS towards all the other PCI cards????

Hi,
I've aways wonder why they make AGP card with those RED HOT chips pointing downwards? they makes it hack of a lot harder to cool/oc the chip... why don't they just put it on top so we can put a big fat Heatsink fan on it!? I've seen many ppl tried to put a heatsink there anyway.. but I don't think it's as good as having a Direct Contact w/ the chip right? although it does help a bit....

Is it Impossible to make AGP cards having the chip pointing towards the CPU? and if that's the case WHY!!?!?

Thanks for any input!

Cancerman

 

[outhouse]

ive put a huge HSF on my GF2mx you just have to give up 1 PCI slot to me its worth the trade off. I kind of like mine pointing down because its sucking cold air to the chip that blows in from my case fan in the front of my case. just a guess here but maybe they dont want the HSF to the video card to suck up hot air from your CPU. allthough i suppose you could put a HSF on the back of the chip with the one i have and the good air circulation in my case i dont need any more cooling for it. They do make some good aftermarket HSF's that will do a pretty good job of cooling your chip without loosing any PCI slots, i think one is the Lasagna also you can modify the blue orb using a copper plate and get some good results without loosing any PCI slots too.

 

[surlyjoe]

PCI cards are oriented chips down , to keep the dust from collecting on the chips and inulating them from the cool air

 

[Cancerman]

Dust... IC.... and also.. it's true that the HSF will blow hot air to the CPU.. but I guess that can be fix w/ a Duct...

never thought Dust could be that much of a problem... I've seen blob of dust on my mobo... doesn't seems to cause any problems... O well.. I guess we'll have to think of a better way to cool the graphic chip and STILL have the 1st PCI slot... as I've heard that soon.. AGP slot shares PCI1's IRQ will be history w/ some newer chipset..

hmmm... come to think of it... I might try using some partially coated metal sheet to Transfer the heat from the botton of the AGP card to the upper part... see if it'll improve cooling.... I wanna overclock my stupid Geforce256...

thanks for all the input guys! Very Helpful!

Cancerman

 

[Nealer]

I think they do it to force you to buy one of those PCI system coolers to fit under it... On the box of mine it says "Works great under a hot video card"

 

[Pitspawn]

I think this is actually a very good point. I am baffled too to why agp card manufacturers have their chips aiming downwards.

Sure there is less dust build up, but what about the fact that hot air rises? If the chip is pointing downwards, then heat gets insulated anyway.

What about the fact that big hsf's on an AGP cause PCI slots to be lost? If the AGP face pointed upwards this problem would also be avoided too.

AND, what if you have a window and like showing off your computer? An AGP that aims downwards hides all the pretty components that make it up.

To be honest, I dont think that AGP actually get that hot when compared to modern cpus. I have an overclocked GF3 and its still pretty chilly. And, people who let dust build up in their system for months and months need to be shot anyway. I cannot have this happen to me as I have to clean my case a lot because it is open to show all the time.

 

[SharkyTM]

i've got an overclocked GF2 GTS.... and i use a slot blower in PCI 1 to exhaust that heat out... and my window is big enough that you can see my vid. card,.... soon to have handmade copper/aluminum composite heatsinks n ram and a copperfoot orb on the GPU

SharkyTM

 

[JML]

I don't use to many PCI cards, but I got a board w/ a lot of PCI slots just so I could fit a bit heatsink on my videocard. I really wish the stupid thing was on the top! I could free up my lost PCI slots by putting a small waterblock on the GPU and add it to the rest of my watercooling set-up, but I don't want the added heat in my water. I guess your best bet is what Outhouse said.

CancerMan- Perhaps a heatpipe would suit your needs well. I am not very familiar w/ them, but I believe some laptops have them to move the heat to a section where there is room for a heatsink (If anyone knows If I'm off here please correct me).

 

[dozier768]

i think its because the upper pci and the agp share the same irq so it makes it impossible to put both an agp and a pci on the same irq "11 i think"

 

[cjtune]

The dust and airflow characteristic around cards pointing downwards may just be a nice consequence of an arbitrary choice and standardization among PCB makers. Are you even sure the engineers thought about all of this? Hey, take CD-Rs. Why must they be 74 minutes or 80 minutes? Why not 76 or 88? It's just something decided 'just like that' during the design process and since it's so harmless probably the engineers didn't give any more tought to it...... perhaps until now.

 

[LimeyGreg]

I had also thought about this some time back when using an ATI All-in-Wonder and the board was becoming discolored with the heat from the GPU, having the components on the CPU side would be much better.

I noticed that on one of the Abit boards they had put the floppy drive header between the AGP and PCI slot, hence giving more separation and not causing you to loose a PCI slot when adding an HSF to the GPU.

 

[eobard]

Cancerman (Jun 25, 2001 09:05 p.m.):
Hi,
I've aways wonder why they make AGP card with those RED HOT chips pointing downwards?

Cancerman

This won't help much but here's your answer: Because they are dumbasses.

(The opinions expressed are those of someone else and do not necessicarily reflect those of myself, also they does not refer to any person or videocard corporation who wishes to sue me.)

 

[most deaf]

where shall i start, whan pci cards first came out they designed them to be shared with ISA slots which faces upwards to get rid of heat produced, when they were think of the ATX design they kept that but did not icoperate AGP slots as they came later, also if they did face the other way they could touch the ram or processor