Is it time for vertical PCIe slots?
Adding another Fractal Design shoutout for the Node 304 - I’ve been running on this for several years now. mITX but tons of room for activities. Case is designed so mobo sits on the bottom, making GPU vertical
This is sometimes already a thing, especially in small form factor builds :)
I did a build in the Fractal Design Terra and it comes with an extension cable for the motherboard pcie slot to route it to a different location.
Of course, the main reason for this is to better utilise the space inside the case, but the GPU standing vertically does feel like a really nice side-benefit.
Does it have any heat dispersion drawbacks? It’ll be nice if there were aftermarket cooler specifically designed for vertical mounting
I’m just using the GPU’s integrated cooler and it’s okay. Not ideal probably as the fan blasts inwards and there’s a channel to allow the heat to then come up and out the top of the case. But no throttling.
Worth pointing out that some configurations in this case can have acoustic issues if your GPU is too close to the side vent, but that’s a problem with this case specifically. Other vertical cases may not do that.
There are always tradeoffs when going very compact.