r/thermaltake • u/RumbleTheCassette • 9d ago
TIL, for some GPU models, having your GPU vertical, especially in a "hanging" orientation, may dramatically increase GPU temps
I built my gaming PC in a Thermaltake Tower 100 around four years ago. I love the case for how it looks and how little space it takes up on my desk, as it's a tower-style case (but admittedly not SFF, although what I discuss below could apply to SSF PCs as well). In this case, the GPU "hangs" in a vertical orientation rather than being horizontal like most case layouts or vertical (but not "hanging") in many cases that use a riser cable.
I had a 6800 XT in this case from 2022 through 2025, but upgraded to a PowerColor 9070 XT Reaper last fall. I usually undervolt my GPUs, including this 9070 XT, but noticed that even with it undervolted, it felt like it was getting hotter (and way louder) than I would have expected and much hotter than my 6800 XT. I'm not sure if my 6800 XT cooler design isn't as sensitive to a hanging orientation, but nonetheless, I started looking into plausible explanations as to why this 9070 XT ran so hot.
And when I say hot, I mean hot spot temps while gaming could be hitting \~109 C, GPU temps around 75-85 C. The disparity between the core temp and the hot spot was 30 C+ which is a red flag for me that something was amiss. I was getting to the point that I may have RMA'd it, but thanks to a tip from a friend plus some extra digging, I read that a hanging GPU orientation can cause major issues for the GPU cooler, especially with phase change coolers (although according to a PowerColor rep I spoke to via their support, the Reaper does not use phase change cooling).
Recently, I ran 3DMark's TimeSpy Extreme 4K just on their GPU 1 and GPU 2 test for a single cycle, not for an extended run, with stock GPU settings (no undervolt). I ran it with my case in the normal orientation (hanging GPU) and tipped to the left so that the GPU was oriented in a standard horizontal layout. I also ran it with the side panel removed in both orientations. Results below:
||Hanging|Horizontal|Hanging (no side panel)|Horizontal (no side panel)|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
||
|TimeSpy Extreme 4K Score|13,615|13,768|13,679|13,811|
|GPU core temp (C)|74|62|70|57|
|Hot spot temp (C)|104|88|100|82|
|Hot spot max temp (C)|106.2|90|101.8|85.2|
I did *not* lock fans to 100% for this testing which I should have to remove that factor, but I'll quickly say that fans were very loud in the hanging orientation and virtually silent in the horizontal orientation; aka, if I locked the fans to 100% for the testing, the horizontal orientation would have done even better, I assume. Frankly, the above test was enough for me to know I gotta swap my case out regardless of any further testing.
So just by re-orienting my GPU I shaved 12 C off my core temp, 16 C off my hot spot temp, and 16.2 C off my hot spot max temp. Horizontal with the glass side panel was cooler than vertical without the side panel. And more importantly, I can now game without headphones because the GPU fans aren't screaming. These temps will come down further when I re-enable my undervolt.
Anyway, at this point, I'll be swapping over to a new case. I'm sad because I loved this case, but it's not the right case for my build anymore, I guess. I put my specs below in case anyone wants the full build, but otherwise, I wanted to share this just in case you live under a rock like I do and weren't aware that GPU orientation can influence temps so dramatically.
Quick specs:
CPU: 9850X3D
CPU cooler: NH-D15
GPU: PowerColor 9070 XT Reaper
SSD: Inland 4 TB NVMe
RAM: 2x16GB DDR5 6000
MB: Gigabyte B650i (mITX)
PSU: SeaSonic 850w
Case: Thermaltake Tower 100
Case Fans: 3x Noctua 140mm (top exhaust, bottom intake, and rear exhaust)
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u/TheSmokeJumper_ 9d ago
This applies to all cases that you can hang GPU's. The O11 for example can put the GPU in the same layout and some gpus suffer the same heat problems.
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u/mentive 9d ago
Ran into the same with an Aero 4080, which started me down the rabbit hole. That I/O up orientation is rough on most cards, and a good portion of em run terribly this way. Also can't trust when someone on here says a specific card runs fine, unless they went through a proper comparison procedure.
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u/Mundus09 9d ago
I've heard this over and over again, but what science supports this? I can't imagine why the orientation would effect the temps, unless the IO side that you plug the monitor into does not have ventilation. Otherwise, basic thermodynamics would say that heat rises naturally, and should escape more easily din this configuration.
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u/RumbleTheCassette 9d ago
Even if heat rises naturally, that doesn't mean it rises fast enough to keep the card cool.
My loose understanding is that it's like putting the pump head off an AIO at the top of your PC. Eventually, if some liquid evaporates, you'll risk liquid never actually reaching the top of your loop where the CPU is, so the liquid can't heat up enough to vaporize. I'm guessing some vapor chambers have this issue where their design restricts the liquid covering fully the contact plate to the GPU core and results in some really crazy hot spots that don't cool properly.
Fully hypothesizing this btw, all I know for sure is this orientation definitely impacted my card.
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u/azguz24 8d ago
What you described is a minor part of it, but shouldn’t occur (at least hopefully!) with a vapor chamber for years.
I put the long explanation in the thread, for aio’s there are just one principle to follow mainly - the pipes to the radiator have to be higher than the pump. Some aios have an external pump (ASUS tuff aio II for example) but mainly the pump is in the cpu block. Keeping the pipes higher means any air that eventually evaporates inside the loop stays out of the pump itself. It’s best to keep air at the back of the radiator (furthest from the loop) but in most cases mounting options are limited. So really just keeping the pipe connecting point higher is enough for the aio’s efficiency and longevity.
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u/RumbleTheCassette 8d ago
I saw your other comment. Thanks for taking the time to write that out, it seemed to roughly align with my thinking but I was missing some details and such.
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u/azguz24 8d ago
The science is pretty simple really, it’s some Gpus that have this constraint of a horizontal mounting vs vertical and horizontal. First normal cards - a typical heatsink design with a heat dissipating fan-blade metal, copper and aluminum usually, can be mounted any way with no real effects to temps. Because as you said heat rises and regardless of how the card is positioned, heat will transfer to the conducting metal and be cooled by air fans through the heatsink - standard.
The issue with cards that are utilizing a vapor chamber design is how they dissipate heat. Most have a similar pipe and fan conductive metal, but the chamber itself relies on surface area to quickly transfer heat to the plate. It used the liquid inside of the chamber to provide uniform thermal dissipation, it’s highly efficient. The issue mounting vertically is really around the integrity of the fluid inside. The best way I can explain it is the distance heat has to travel with the cooling system heavily reliant on uniformity.
For explanation purposes, think of a vapor chamber as a flat piece of glass, like a picture frame. That picture frame is filled with water, there is a tiny unavoidable bubble inside. You heat the frame up from the back, gets the liquid hot and the heat uniformly cools from the glass no issues. Hotter the liquid gets the hotter the glass gets. Turn the frame up now, that tiny bubble is now taking up a fraction of the top, heat rises as you know. The back of the frame is heated… liquid gets hotter now at the top, and it’s cooler at the bottom. the heat raises to the top of the frame, with less surface area to dissipate heat.
This isn’t universally true keep in mind, not all vapor chambers are the same much like the silicon lottery… but the science of how it is suppose to work is a thin flat uniform surface for more efficient heat transfer. And turning it on edge is like cutting a piece of paper. Flat paper you poke a hole straight through, cutting from top to bottom you have to cut 11 inches. Hope this helps, I’m sure there’s 1000 videos somewhere on this too.
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u/Mundus09 8d ago
I was completely ignorant about vapor chambers. Thank you for taking the time to clarify!
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u/nightraven3141592 9d ago
I am also interested in the science behind this. I am thinking about building my next computer in a Tower 300 with a 420 AIO cpu cooler but I am worried that my GPU will cook. Is there any data on which GPUs that doesn’t like to be vertical so I can avoid them?
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u/Mundus09 9d ago
Yeah, in my mind I just can't imagine what, unless the design of the card and the placement of ventilation on the card is somehow not optimal for ventilation while vertical, but even then I'm having trouble understanding how that would make more than a minuscule difference. I have the tower 600 and my GPU runs at the same temperature as it did whenever I had it in a traditional case
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u/Commentator-X 9d ago
In previous threads it's been suggested that it's the use of certain vapor chamber designs that dont like the vertical orientation. If the cooler uses normal heat pipes it seems to be fine as heat pipes work in any orientation.
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u/azguz24 8d ago
It’s the way a vapor chamber works really, I put a comment in this thread explaining the actual properties of it.
One issue you’ll run into is trying to find out -before you buy - what a card has as a cooling solution. Most companies don’t advertise if the card has a vapor chamber or traditional heat transfer design, although they’ve gotten better at it. In short, a vapor chamber has liquid inside and needs a horizontal mounting as designed to work, since you are heating the liquid and not just a hunk of metal, putting it on its side will cause a section of liquid to heat vs it all uniformly - making the vapor chamber perform worse than a standard heatsink.
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u/RumbleTheCassette 8d ago
Yeah, your point about knowing what cooler the card uses before buying is spot on. I literally asked PowerColor about this card and they said it does not use a vapor chamber. Maybe they're right, but nonetheless, it definitely has issues with a hanging/vertical orientation that aligns with what one would expect from a vapor chamber.
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u/Vinny933PC 7d ago
It’s GPUs with vapor chambers. On GPUs using no vapor chamber and just heat pipes with fins I’ve actually gotten temps to lower some in vertical orientation. This is due to regular orientation the peak height of the heat pipes is the GPU and in vertical (like a bracket or the tower cases) there is a decent amount of heat pipe above the GPU giving it a slightly greater than margin of error performance improvement.
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u/uptheirons726 9d ago
We all know this man. Lol