GPU cooling design

[pigfarmer]

 I was looking at my mining set up and it occurred to me that I may not be giving my GPU's the chance to cool properly as the cards are all suspended on their sides via extenders.

 If they were in a gaming case they would be all on the flat with the fans drawing air from underneath them and I am sure the designers would expect that this would be a working condition for them.

 I looked up how these flat heat pipes work in Wikipedia  and it seems they either rely on gravity or wicks to return an internal working fluid to the area trying to be cooled.

 So I have deducted that indeed I am not properly cooling my GPU's as the designers have designed and might well be damaging my cards.

 Could someone with a better understanding of the cooling principles of GPU's throw some light on the subject please?

 Regards

[Arcas]

There are two kinds of GPU air coolers.

The first is the blower design:

It sucks air in from the front fan, blows it past the radiators over the silicon, and ejects out the bracket end of the card.

The second is the open design:

Air is sucked in from the front fans, blows through the radiators, and out the sides of the card.

Both depend on air flowing past the metal radiator fins to wick heat away. As long as the card has adequate intake and outtake, it should cool just fine.

[crazyates]

I think the OP is already using a cooler with an axial (aka non-blower) fan, but wondering if the vertical vs horizontal orientation is affecting cooling performance? Short answer? No. Long answer? Manufacturers don't know how any given GPU is going to be mounted, so they can't design for one physical orientation and nothing else. I think the heatpipes rely on evaporation & condensation more than they do gravity, so I don't think you're losing any cooling performance.

But this is all theoretical. Have you noticed any actual cooling shortcomings by standing them up vertically? I haven't, and all of our GPUs are being cooled just as well as they should be.

[pigfarmer]

 Thanks for the input guys, I have sent an email to Gigabyte support (I'm using lots of r9 280x's) asking the question and will report back when/if they answer.

 I tend to agree with you all but it just seems strange if gravity is used in the calculations given there is liquid involved I might not be getting an even cooling effect across the entire chip.

 Hopefully we will hear from the Gigabye team. Thanks again

  Regards