reference image if you have no idea what I’m talking about:
I know this is a minor nitpick, but it’s something that annoys me.
I got this graphics card mostly because it was the best deal on Amazon at the time (gpu shortage), and I also thought it looked decent from the images they had. However, when I actually installed it, all I see is the relatively unattractive looking black metal backplate with some white text. The other side is always the side shown in the promotional images too - not a single one of the pictures in the Amazon listing even shows the side that you’ll be seeing 99.9% of the time. Do they think everyone hangs their PCs above them from the ceiling, or has open-air testbenches? Why do they never even bother with the other side? I know they want the fans on the bottom so the cooling is better, but the air in front of the CPU shouldn’t be that bad, a lot of cheaper GPUs don’t need that much cooling, and a ton of people have watercooling now anyways so the CPU radiators just go on the sides.
The backplate does provide some cooling on higher end cards. I have a water block on a 3080 and it’s not recommended to run it without a backplate.
the backplate keeps the board from warping due to excessive heat.