The Best GPU Orientation EXPLAINED!

The Upright Graphics Card Configuration: A Detailed Review

In this article, we will delve into the world of custom PC building and explore one of the most unique graphics card configurations out there - the upright position. We'll take you through the process of installing a radiator in an upright orientation, dealing with power cables, and experiencing the temperatures that come with it.

Installing the Radiator: A Straightforward Process

The installation of the radiator was relatively straightforward. The author found that everything fit together perfectly, with no major challenges to overcome. However, there were some minor issues to contend with, such as janky fits for the power cables. These cables had to be routed carefully to avoid any obstruction or damage.

Moving Forward: Rearranging the Fans and Power Cables

The next step was to relocate the bottom fans to the front of the case. This allowed for direct intake, which is a key aspect of any well-designed cooling system. The author found that this configuration made it much easier to deal with power cables and Riser cables, as they were no longer obstructed by the GPU.

The Power Cables: A Challenge

One of the biggest challenges facing the author was the power cable for the GPU. These cables had to be routed carefully through the case without causing any damage or obstruction. The author found that this was a bit of a tight squeeze, but it ultimately worked out.

Routing the Riser Cable: Not the Cleanest Job

The Riser cable, which connects the motherboard to the power supply, had to be routed from behind the power supply. This was not the cleanest job by any means, but it got the job done. The author found that this required some creativity and problem-solving skills.

The Upright Orientation: Surprisingly Effective

To everyone's surprise, the upright orientation of the graphics card actually worked quite well. The fans at the bottom of the case were able to provide good airflow, which helped to keep the GPU temperatures under control. However, the author notes that this configuration is not ideal for everyday use and should only be used for experimental purposes.

The Reverse Orientation: A Unique Solution

For our final configuration, we flipped the case around so that it was in reverse mode. This allowed us to mount the radiator on top of the GPU, which provided excellent airflow and helped to keep temperatures under control. The author found this orientation to be surprisingly effective, especially considering the unique design challenges presented by the upright position.

Temperatures: A Surprising Revelation

When we flipped the case around and mounted the radiator on top of the GPU, we were surprised to find that the temperatures were actually much better than in our default configuration. The direct exhaust from the AIO provided excellent airflow, which helped to dissipate heat away from the GPU.

Conclusion: The Verdict is In

After careful consideration, it's clear that the upright orientation is not ideal for everyday use. While it provides some unique visual benefits, it sacrifices performance and temperature control in the process. However, if you're looking to showcase your GPU in a unique way and don't mind sacrificing a little bit of performance, then this configuration might be worth exploring.

The Reverse Orientation: A Solid Choice

On the other hand, our final configuration - where we flipped the case around and mounted the radiator on top of the GPU - proved to be a solid choice. The temperatures were much better than in our default configuration, and the airflow was excellent. While it may not be the most conventional design, this orientation provides excellent cooling and is definitely worth considering.

Final Thoughts: A Word of Caution

It's essential to remember that the results you see from these configurations will vary depending on your specific cooling setup, GPU heatsink, and overall system configuration. The author notes that these tests were conducted with a specific case and components in mind, so your mileage may vary.

We'd love to hear about your own experiences with different GPU orientations! Have you tried the upright position or reverse orientation? Share your stories in the comments below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right some GPU brackets acquired I got a massive four slot GPU because I've always been curious to see what orientations for the GPU is best for best cooling performance because you know getting massive gpus is becoming a little bit more common these days and this newly and Lee not so new but the latest o11 Dynamic evolution is absolutely perfect for this test now the o11 has a very special place in my review history because it has gone through a few iterations with constant improvements to the user experience and today we're testing its full versatility because it is one of the only cases on the market to allow four different GPU orientations standard vertical upright and reverse and let's hope it does not disappoint now the glass at the front is all fine Dandy but did you know we have a front mesh kit that allows us to install fans here instead of having this beautiful tempered glass with these brackets and the actual mesh panel glasses off notice we have two mounting locations for 120 and 140 fans that's awesome mesh panel going in place not bad at all huh if you have not yet worked with an o11 Dynamic Evo let me tell you the experience is absolutely incredible you can call me a lean Lee Fanboy just because all the brackets are removable for installation of its outside of the case which makes things so much simpler put this back for now the top bracket is removable from the interior is held in with two screws at the back and these little pegs at the front so you can kind of secure the bracket in place and then screw it back in looking behind the case we have this bracket that has some depth flexibility just like on the line equal 3 for example so just lift this lever and the side bracket comes off so easy installation but you can also rotate it to either give you depth on the interior on the or the exterior for easy installation of whatever you might want to do later on so this is absolutely brilliant and by rotating this bracket we can mount this upright vertical GPU bracket so we can have the GPU on the side of the motherboard that's pretty cool I am of course using the unifans because they're freaking gorgeous and so easy to daisy chain and mount it's products like these that make rebuilding computers fun especially when we have to test multiple configurations be ready to be captivated by a fusion of vivid colors deeper blacks and a wicked fast 240Hz refresh rate with corsair's Xenon Flex gaming monitor featuring the world's first bendable Ola display in a stunning 45 inch wqhd ultrawide aspect ratio immerse yourself in gaming and other productive tasks you get all the extra good fees for ultimate speed and position within a game get quick access to a few USB ports at the front and plenty of other display connectivity options at the back and all this Tech is backed with their Advanced burning protection and a 3 year warranty if you're looking to flex your gaming setup look no further than Corsair senior on Flex learn more down below alright so for our first configuration on the GPU and the horizontal orientation this is like 99 of systems there are two benefits here so number one is that we have this direct bottom intake directly for the GPU number two is that if you're using a massive CPU heatsink for air cooling it's not going to interfere with the GPU so that's a positive and despite having this back plate that is very pretty that matches my motherboard we are losing a little bit on the Aesthetics you know simply because you might want to showcase your GPU properly and so first I want to set a baseline for all the testing with the GPU fans at 100 to get our best case scenario and with the cooler this big the temperatures are pretty good like you would expect but for a more realistic result that is not blasting a year all the testing was done at 60 fan speed on the GPU and while temperatures do rise they're still super low so let's vertical this setup shall we the vertical bracket is six slots so we can fit it in the top six slot position uh giving us plenty of clearance away from the bottom fans this goes in first okay okay also you can see we have three positions for our Riser Cable Mount so that if you need additional clearance away from the motherboard you have that option and the ribbon cable is flexible enough so don't be worried about you know giving it some force in order to flex it out of the way for the GPU installing the graphics card after mounting the bracket into the frame is a little bit difficult because we don't have that clean of an access for our thumb screws for the graphics card itself so I would Mount the graphics card onto the bracket and then Mount the whole thing into the case instead it's a little more challenging than I thought look at that sag though jeez you might need a little platform over here for example and maybe even the platform for the GPU so it doesn't sag off the bracket itself as you can see there's quite a bit of sag both from the GPU and the bracket so I found that putting some sort of a little spacer right underneath the bracket alleviates most of the SAG and you can also put something between the GPU and the bracket as well just so that the top end or the back end has a little bit of that extra elevation but otherwise let's power this on see what it looks like I gotta say I love what the vertical GPU does it makes your graphics card like the center of attention without compromising on any of the other Hardware that we had installed prior so this bracket for example is a gent for Riser cable so no problems with compatibility this just booted no problem which I'm really thankful for we do have some flexibility even in the height of the installation for this bracket so six slots and we can even go slightly higher but I wouldn't recommend it because it would start to interfere with our a or block and that's one of the disadvantages of going vertical you you need to use an AO or some really low profile cooler because otherwise the heatsink will bump into your GPU of course depending on the size of the graphics card but with most even smaller graphics cards that are two slot you still might encounter some compatibility issues with a CPU heatsink air cooler in terms of cooling what do you guys think are we gonna get anything better because we do have additional vertical airflow movement that isn't completely blocked by the GPU so more air will probably get for our AIO and so this vertical path is slightly more unrestricted now what surprised me here though are the hotter temperatures in vertical and you know two degrees Celsius is really nothing and even though the clock speeds are a bit lower this should not be a deterrent from exploring this orientation especially because when we disabled the bottom fans we got even better temperatures so clearly the air is getting a little bit too turbulent for efficient cooling even though we're running those case fans at the bottom at 1000 RPM and now it's finally time to upgrade write this GPU beside the motherboard first we need to prep the system by removing everything we just installed I really wish there was more room here the upright bracket is actually installed on the side bracket over here but this has to be facing the interior it would be easier with these front brackets removed let's take off the radiator so you can see what I'm doing so the upright bracket is installed on the side bracket and we're utilizing the 140 millimeter fan mounts and just like that that gets installed and secured with a few screws at the back the GPU goes over here and then we'll figure out how to actually route the Riser cable nice that's in there I do have this 600 millimeter Gen 4 Riser cable that is necessary to be used with this upright position kit tricky to get there the next challenge is routing and plugging in the DP cable the thing is this bracket can be installed lower but because I don't have much flexibility with how long this graphics card is this uh upright bracket position is at its highest all right so this actually plugged in not bad time to install the radiator I cannot believe everything fits so far I would say the biggest challenge for me right now is the power cable there's just not that much room between the connector and the frame over here janky fit but it fit I also want to relocate the bottom fans to the front just so that we have direct intake just like with the other configurations and because of the daisy chain design and a single cable for power and RGB this reconfiguration is made so much easier the two biggest challenges with the upright position are the power cables for the GPU because right now they're just kind of stuffed at the front but our front fans fit no problem everything around the motherboard is fine we just have to Route the Riser cable it's not the cleanest job at the back but this reaches okay now we'll just hope that this thing boots all right the upright orientation works just fine on the first boot I did not expect that to happen the front fans fit no problem they're not bumping into the GPU I cannot Mount the radiator bracket at the bottom just because of the power cables maybe I can reposition them somewhere and the gpus basically like touching the floor this is probably the biggest graphics card you can fit inside this case but like with a dual slot and some something that isn't that long uh would be a lot more comfortable to work with because it would free up all this bottom space for radiator instead of fans but you do have to keep in mind on how to route this Riser cable from behind I have to Route it from behind the power supply it's not very comfortable but everything is working just fine so I'm very curious to know what the temperatures would be like here with this configuration and so the temperatures are shockingly bad it's like all the heat is trapped around the GPU so unless you feel experimental the upright position should be like for marketing materials only even though we have such good intake from the front this really surprised me now we can flip the card in the upright position and it's only possible with the case in the reverse mode there is a slight benefit with temperatures but then we have nothing to directly support the top of the card aside from the radiator and I'm not a huge fan of this access to the DP port at the bottom and for our last configuration here we have the case in Reverse mode a really unique way that does not require that much effort just make sure to follow the tutorial and no system inside the case to make your life easier so in this reverse configuration I would say the biggest visual benefit is the fact that now you're looking on the right side of the enclosure therefore the case can be on the left side of your monitor but also everything is upside down both on the GPU and on the motherboard but cooling wise I'm expecting this to do very well just because we have unrestricted top intake which is much better than slightly restricted bottom intake for the GPU otherwise and this direct exhaust for our AIO so whatever heat is being generated is being exhausted and yeah I would say this would perform very well so finally looking at the temperatures all side by side the reverse orientation with the GPU up top is actually a solid choice for Cool Running components but it's so close to our default there's really no need to do the layout swap unless you want the PC on your left side and going vertical is just slightly worse likely due to the GPU fans facing the glass panel and also a change in airflow Pathways and going to that strange upright position is absolutely pointless unless you are exploring the fun factor with doing something different with your PC honestly I'm pretty surprised the results you guys are probably too but it gives you that confirmation that go in the traditional classic horizontal GPU orientation is the best way to go going on the reverse is even better just because we have slightly more unrestrictive top intake directly for the GPU and going vertical or any upright position is just for the visuals there is no performance benefit there and if you want to showcase your GPU properly while sacrificing a little bit of performance and the temperatures then that is obviously possible and the process of getting there isn't that difficult and at least I'm happy about that but also they are aware that the temperatures and performance numbers might be different depending on you the rest of your cooling configuration and the rest of the GPU heatsink and how it's designed where the airflow is moving Etc so if you are using a GPU like ours the results should be consistent to what you should expect but just keep in mind that they will vary based on your graphics card you know I am very curious to know which GPU orientation you're running in your PC let me know in the comments I'm admitry thanks for watching and I'll talk to you next video foreignall right some GPU brackets acquired I got a massive four slot GPU because I've always been curious to see what orientations for the GPU is best for best cooling performance because you know getting massive gpus is becoming a little bit more common these days and this newly and Lee not so new but the latest o11 Dynamic evolution is absolutely perfect for this test now the o11 has a very special place in my review history because it has gone through a few iterations with constant improvements to the user experience and today we're testing its full versatility because it is one of the only cases on the market to allow four different GPU orientations standard vertical upright and reverse and let's hope it does not disappoint now the glass at the front is all fine Dandy but did you know we have a front mesh kit that allows us to install fans here instead of having this beautiful tempered glass with these brackets and the actual mesh panel glasses off notice we have two mounting locations for 120 and 140 fans that's awesome mesh panel going in place not bad at all huh if you have not yet worked with an o11 Dynamic Evo let me tell you the experience is absolutely incredible you can call me a lean Lee Fanboy just because all the brackets are removable for installation of its outside of the case which makes things so much simpler put this back for now the top bracket is removable from the interior is held in with two screws at the back and these little pegs at the front so you can kind of secure the bracket in place and then screw it back in looking behind the case we have this bracket that has some depth flexibility just like on the line equal 3 for example so just lift this lever and the side bracket comes off so easy installation but you can also rotate it to either give you depth on the interior on the or the exterior for easy installation of whatever you might want to do later on so this is absolutely brilliant and by rotating this bracket we can mount this upright vertical GPU bracket so we can have the GPU on the side of the motherboard that's pretty cool I am of course using the unifans because they're freaking gorgeous and so easy to daisy chain and mount it's products like these that make rebuilding computers fun especially when we have to test multiple configurations be ready to be captivated by a fusion of vivid colors deeper blacks and a wicked fast 240Hz refresh rate with corsair's Xenon Flex gaming monitor featuring the world's first bendable Ola display in a stunning 45 inch wqhd ultrawide aspect ratio immerse yourself in gaming and other productive tasks you get all the extra good fees for ultimate speed and position within a game get quick access to a few USB ports at the front and plenty of other display connectivity options at the back and all this Tech is backed with their Advanced burning protection and a 3 year warranty if you're looking to flex your gaming setup look no further than Corsair senior on Flex learn more down below alright so for our first configuration on the GPU and the horizontal orientation this is like 99 of systems there are two benefits here so number one is that we have this direct bottom intake directly for the GPU number two is that if you're using a massive CPU heatsink for air cooling it's not going to interfere with the GPU so that's a positive and despite having this back plate that is very pretty that matches my motherboard we are losing a little bit on the Aesthetics you know simply because you might want to showcase your GPU properly and so first I want to set a baseline for all the testing with the GPU fans at 100 to get our best case scenario and with the cooler this big the temperatures are pretty good like you would expect but for a more realistic result that is not blasting a year all the testing was done at 60 fan speed on the GPU and while temperatures do rise they're still super low so let's vertical this setup shall we the vertical bracket is six slots so we can fit it in the top six slot position uh giving us plenty of clearance away from the bottom fans this goes in first okay okay also you can see we have three positions for our Riser Cable Mount so that if you need additional clearance away from the motherboard you have that option and the ribbon cable is flexible enough so don't be worried about you know giving it some force in order to flex it out of the way for the GPU installing the graphics card after mounting the bracket into the frame is a little bit difficult because we don't have that clean of an access for our thumb screws for the graphics card itself so I would Mount the graphics card onto the bracket and then Mount the whole thing into the case instead it's a little more challenging than I thought look at that sag though jeez you might need a little platform over here for example and maybe even the platform for the GPU so it doesn't sag off the bracket itself as you can see there's quite a bit of sag both from the GPU and the bracket so I found that putting some sort of a little spacer right underneath the bracket alleviates most of the SAG and you can also put something between the GPU and the bracket as well just so that the top end or the back end has a little bit of that extra elevation but otherwise let's power this on see what it looks like I gotta say I love what the vertical GPU does it makes your graphics card like the center of attention without compromising on any of the other Hardware that we had installed prior so this bracket for example is a gent for Riser cable so no problems with compatibility this just booted no problem which I'm really thankful for we do have some flexibility even in the height of the installation for this bracket so six slots and we can even go slightly higher but I wouldn't recommend it because it would start to interfere with our a or block and that's one of the disadvantages of going vertical you you need to use an AO or some really low profile cooler because otherwise the heatsink will bump into your GPU of course depending on the size of the graphics card but with most even smaller graphics cards that are two slot you still might encounter some compatibility issues with a CPU heatsink air cooler in terms of cooling what do you guys think are we gonna get anything better because we do have additional vertical airflow movement that isn't completely blocked by the GPU so more air will probably get for our AIO and so this vertical path is slightly more unrestricted now what surprised me here though are the hotter temperatures in vertical and you know two degrees Celsius is really nothing and even though the clock speeds are a bit lower this should not be a deterrent from exploring this orientation especially because when we disabled the bottom fans we got even better temperatures so clearly the air is getting a little bit too turbulent for efficient cooling even though we're running those case fans at the bottom at 1000 RPM and now it's finally time to upgrade write this GPU beside the motherboard first we need to prep the system by removing everything we just installed I really wish there was more room here the upright bracket is actually installed on the side bracket over here but this has to be facing the interior it would be easier with these front brackets removed let's take off the radiator so you can see what I'm doing so the upright bracket is installed on the side bracket and we're utilizing the 140 millimeter fan mounts and just like that that gets installed and secured with a few screws at the back the GPU goes over here and then we'll figure out how to actually route the Riser cable nice that's in there I do have this 600 millimeter Gen 4 Riser cable that is necessary to be used with this upright position kit tricky to get there the next challenge is routing and plugging in the DP cable the thing is this bracket can be installed lower but because I don't have much flexibility with how long this graphics card is this uh upright bracket position is at its highest all right so this actually plugged in not bad time to install the radiator I cannot believe everything fits so far I would say the biggest challenge for me right now is the power cable there's just not that much room between the connector and the frame over here janky fit but it fit I also want to relocate the bottom fans to the front just so that we have direct intake just like with the other configurations and because of the daisy chain design and a single cable for power and RGB this reconfiguration is made so much easier the two biggest challenges with the upright position are the power cables for the GPU because right now they're just kind of stuffed at the front but our front fans fit no problem everything around the motherboard is fine we just have to Route the Riser cable it's not the cleanest job at the back but this reaches okay now we'll just hope that this thing boots all right the upright orientation works just fine on the first boot I did not expect that to happen the front fans fit no problem they're not bumping into the GPU I cannot Mount the radiator bracket at the bottom just because of the power cables maybe I can reposition them somewhere and the gpus basically like touching the floor this is probably the biggest graphics card you can fit inside this case but like with a dual slot and some something that isn't that long uh would be a lot more comfortable to work with because it would free up all this bottom space for radiator instead of fans but you do have to keep in mind on how to route this Riser cable from behind I have to Route it from behind the power supply it's not very comfortable but everything is working just fine so I'm very curious to know what the temperatures would be like here with this configuration and so the temperatures are shockingly bad it's like all the heat is trapped around the GPU so unless you feel experimental the upright position should be like for marketing materials only even though we have such good intake from the front this really surprised me now we can flip the card in the upright position and it's only possible with the case in the reverse mode there is a slight benefit with temperatures but then we have nothing to directly support the top of the card aside from the radiator and I'm not a huge fan of this access to the DP port at the bottom and for our last configuration here we have the case in Reverse mode a really unique way that does not require that much effort just make sure to follow the tutorial and no system inside the case to make your life easier so in this reverse configuration I would say the biggest visual benefit is the fact that now you're looking on the right side of the enclosure therefore the case can be on the left side of your monitor but also everything is upside down both on the GPU and on the motherboard but cooling wise I'm expecting this to do very well just because we have unrestricted top intake which is much better than slightly restricted bottom intake for the GPU otherwise and this direct exhaust for our AIO so whatever heat is being generated is being exhausted and yeah I would say this would perform very well so finally looking at the temperatures all side by side the reverse orientation with the GPU up top is actually a solid choice for Cool Running components but it's so close to our default there's really no need to do the layout swap unless you want the PC on your left side and going vertical is just slightly worse likely due to the GPU fans facing the glass panel and also a change in airflow Pathways and going to that strange upright position is absolutely pointless unless you are exploring the fun factor with doing something different with your PC honestly I'm pretty surprised the results you guys are probably too but it gives you that confirmation that go in the traditional classic horizontal GPU orientation is the best way to go going on the reverse is even better just because we have slightly more unrestrictive top intake directly for the GPU and going vertical or any upright position is just for the visuals there is no performance benefit there and if you want to showcase your GPU properly while sacrificing a little bit of performance and the temperatures then that is obviously possible and the process of getting there isn't that difficult and at least I'm happy about that but also they are aware that the temperatures and performance numbers might be different depending on you the rest of your cooling configuration and the rest of the GPU heatsink and how it's designed where the airflow is moving Etc so if you are using a GPU like ours the results should be consistent to what you should expect but just keep in mind that they will vary based on your graphics card you know I am very curious to know which GPU orientation you're running in your PC let me know in the comments I'm admitry thanks for watching and I'll talk to you next video foreign\n"