Interesting.
It may be that because of the delta T between the delivery temp and the air temp is greater on the inlet side compared to the outlet side (as heat has already been extracted). We are talking heater core here with engine block coolant at just below 200F.
The greater the delta T the more efficient the heat transfer, so as the delta T is highest on the inlet side it needs less radiator core because thermal transfer is high. When the coolant gets to the other side it is cooler, the delat T is less and so the heater core has a larger area to increse the effective heat transfer to the air.
That's my $0.02 for what it's worth.
Of course, in our application this "deliberate lopsidedness" to increse thermal heat transfer efficiency is undoubtidly negligable due to the low coolant temperature that a CPU liquid cooling system runs at.
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