Are motherboards or the cards upside down?

[Dustmann]

I didnt know where to post this, but here it is. It seems to me that the pci cards and agp cards are all upside down. Since heat radiates up, why are the chips and transistors and all that stuff on the bottom while installed in the computer?? My Creative Blaster Banshee (yes its 16mb sdram stop laughing) has a heatsink on the bottom, and this seems bass ackwards to me, wouldnt all the heat radiate back up into the card? All cards ive noticed are like this even the new cards have fans that blow downwards?

So is it the mobo, the cards or am I missing something? Maybe i should start putting my cd drvies in upside down and flipping the whole comp over!

[Karnevil9]

No they are correct. While it is true that heat radiates up, dust is heavier than air and flows down. If your card was in the other way, in no time all the components, the heatsink and or fan would be a solid cake of dust particles and no air would circulate and the heat would not dissipate. The fan or fans inside the case will move the air sufficiently that heat captured by the heatsink will move upward.

[bailey]

if you have the proper air flow through the case, that won't be anything to even consider, as any heat will be quickly removed.

[RJ]

If your card was in the other way, in no time all the components, the heatsink and or fan would be a solid cake of dust particles and no air would circulate and the heat would not dissipate.

Hmm. With BTX towers the chips on the PCI cards will face up due to the positioning of the mobo on the other side of the tower.
BTX is supposed to help cooling. . . sounds like this could be a problem then

RJ

[ric449]

That was actually discussed on overclockers.com:

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1033/

[Dustmann]

Thats interesting. The overclockers.com article doesn't mention dust. I never really thought about that. Thanks Karnevil9