Apologies for the very late (a year late) update. Still struggling with components and layouts.
While on the path of designing and developing my custom SFF-PC, I have come across a strange and puzzling problem, for which I have been struggling to find a solution, and still scratching my head, wondering why no one has thought of this before.
My custom SFF-PC design requires the GPU and the Motherboard to be placed on the same plane, i.e. both of the top-sides and back-plates of the circuit boards, and most importantly the exhaust fans, face the same direction.
However, the orientation of the PCIe slot on the motherboard, and the PCIe "key" / "finger" of the GPU always face away from each other, and the notch is exactly opposite. This means the GPU would never be able to face the same direction as the motherboard, and the PCIe contacts would never be near to each other. Even the Dual Reverse Riser cable, further extends the GPU PCIe contact away from the motherboard's PCIe slot.
Wouldn't it be easier to orient the GPU in such a way, that the GPU PCIe "key" is actually facing the motherboard's PCIe slot? I know the entire IO shield gets blocked on the other side, but there isn't much IO needed from GPU anyway! Also, the miniDP ports can easily be extended all th way to the other side with extension cables, in fact with the full DP ports on the IO side of the motherboard.
I searched the entire internet (not really, just couple of days of focused keywords searches), but couldn't find any practical solutions for such a seemingly simple logical problem. The only possible way that I see it working, would be to "twist" my very expensively imported PCIe riser cable, which I do not wish to do, except as a last resort. I cannot fathom that no one else has thought of this before.
I write this long technically-inclined post, so as to invite opinions and insights from other technology enthusiasts like [USER=801]@robbee[/USER] and [USER=18145]@REVOCCASES[/USER]. Please help!
