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CliffyB's Cock Holster
If you take a volume of air and funnel it through a smaller confined path then the air has to speed up which will also cool it.
Here's a simple experiment.. Breathe in steadily through your lips with them wide open and then slowly close your lips while still maintaining the same pressure from your lungs. feel how the air feels to move faster and cooler over the lips and tongue as you narrow the gap?
This is the Venturi effect. As the air goes through the heat sink in the XSX its at its most compressed, travelling the fastest, creating the biggest heat differential between itself and the heatsink and thus removing a lot more heat a lot more efficiently than if the air had unrestricted and constant flow from entering to exiting the case.
If somebody was foolish enough to stand the Series X upright on carpet with a deep pile, its going to significantly compromise its ability to draw in air. Not exactly a design flaw, much more human error, but you know someone, somewhere is going to make this mistake eventually. And when they do, they most likely aren't going to take personal responsibility for it!