DAN A4-SFX: The smallest gaming case in the world

Question about a reference vs. aftermarket GPU in this case -- which is better? Reference are usually recommended for SFF, but I'm thinking the case is so small, and the aftermarket GPU's intake fans will be drawing air directly from the outside, acting as intakes for the whole case, which should help with creating a positive air pressure environment and reducing dust. Thoughts?

Also, if the GPU has a preinstalled backplate, is the plastic shield still needed?
 
I have the 250mm long version of the 3M Twin Axial 16x cable. Will this work in the case or will it be too short?
 
deckard1 said:
I have the 250mm long version of the 3M Twin Axial 16x cable. Will this work in the case or will it be too short?
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Does not matter, the chassis will ship with the ribbon cable already installed…
 
I wonder if we removed all HDD/SSD chambers on this case, how much smaller we could make it.

With PCIE M.2 ssd's, I think we can go even more ultra-compact. I think quite a lot of us don't actually

a) Swap hard drives a lot
b) Need that much space to begin with, or use cloud based storage solutions

I know personally I'd just be sticking a 256-512gb M.2. SSD in mine and calling it a day.

This could then make way for a slot load optical drive (very useful for for HTPC's to act as a blue-ray player)

To be honest, even if we don't remove them all, do you think we need 3 slots, considering the M.2. SSD options? Most enthusiasts (which are in market for this case) probably have M.2 motherboards.

Just a thought, maybe an A4 SLX Lite :).
 
case1 said:
I wonder if we removed all HDD/SSD chambers on this case, how much smaller we could make it.
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I don't think it could be made significantly smaller at all. The dimensions are dictated by the major components (motherboard, PSU, GPU), and the drives are installed wherever they can fit, essentially. The most I could see is maybe trimming a few mm off the front, but that might cost some PSU compatibility (due to the angled C13).

case1 said:
This could then make way for a slot load optical drive (very useful for for HTPC's to act as a blue-ray player)
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There is no room in this layout for a slim optical drive, period. It doesn't matter if you get rid of every drive in the thing - there's just no way to orient an ODD that will work. The only way you could make space for it is to run it with a single slot/no GPU.
 
case1 said:
I wonder if we removed all HDD/SSD chambers on this case, how much smaller we could make it. ...

This could then make way for a slot load optical drive (very useful for for HTPC's to act as a blue-ray player)
Click to expand...

Dude, just buy external USB optical drive or just dedicated media htpc - there are plenty of them, more than you can imagine.

It's been many years since I ever used a CD drive - they are obsolete(except for consoles for certain reasons). For PC I only use USBs and download everything from Net. CD drives is what always irritated me in compact cases on the market, useless thing that eats up lots of space and adds weight, DAN4 case is unique cuz it doesn't have it, yet you want to remove the most important things like 2.5" drives! Wha?! Absolute majority of users need space - for games(nowadays just one game weights around 50 gigs!), movies, torrents, softwares, working project files, archives etc. I have 1,5 terrabytes in PC and its already not enough for me, I bet for many other people too.

I personally would cut a little from front, by leaving space only for small but powerful SFX PSUs(keeping in mind the length of major GPUs like MSI Gaming types), you could cut a few mm by doing that, though cable management would become a separate quest.
 
case1 said:
I wonder if we removed all HDD/SSD chambers on this case, how much smaller we could make it.

With PCIE M.2 ssd's, I think we can go even more ultra-compact. I think quite a lot of us don't actually

a) Swap hard drives a lot
b) Need that much space to begin with, or use cloud based storage solutions

I know personally I'd just be sticking a 256-512gb M.2. SSD in mine and calling it a day.

This could then make way for a slot load optical drive (very useful for for HTPC's to act as a blue-ray player)

To be honest, even if we don't remove them all, do you think we need 3 slots, considering the M.2. SSD options? Most enthusiasts (which are in market for this case) probably have M.2 motherboards.

Just a thought, maybe an A4 SLX Lite :).
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A lot of people will probably do the same and not install any drives, but how would you make the case smaller? You can't reduce the height because of the mITX motherboard and you can't reduce the length or width because of the GPU and the PSU. The only thing possible would be to redesign the front/top panel to have a smaller bend radius, but you'd only reduce the length by 10mm. That's it.
And it's not like 2.5" drives take up a lot of space anyway compared to the other components.

For a slot-in drive to fit, and this has been said time and time and time again, the whole case would have to be completely redesigned, no matter where you put it.

If you wanted to go smaller, you can take a look at the early posts where the A4 was supposed to only be powered by an external PSU and support shorter GPUs, and see whether that would be something for you.
 
iFreilicht said:
A lot of people will probably do the same and not install any drives, but how would you make the case smaller? You can't reduce the height because of the mITX motherboard and you can't reduce the length or width because of the GPU and the PSU. The only thing possible would be to redesign the front/top panel to have a smaller bend radius, but you'd only reduce the length by 10mm. That's it.
And it's not like 2.5" drives take up a lot of space anyway compared to the other components.

For a slot-in drive to fit, and this has been said time and time and time again, the whole case would have to be completely redesigned, no matter where you put it.

If you wanted to go smaller, you can take a look at the early posts where the A4 was supposed to only be powered by an external PSU and support shorter GPUs, and see whether that would be something for you.
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For a case like this, 10mm is huge I think :).

Anyway it was just throwing around idea's, I am probably wrong. I want this case to not just succeed, but be the best case possible. I try not to think of things as not possible, I mean just look at the innovation that went into this case to bring it to where it is - I am sure some time ago people would have thought this form factor with 980 TI and good cooling is impossible. Dan may have other tricks up his sleeves, you never know.

I am hoping in future motherboards have multiple M.2 PCI-e slots, as I think they are superior to the conventional drives - with the only advantage the latter has is hot swapping.

Either way, this case has made me refund my FTZ01 - skip the Ncase M1 - and wait in agony :(. Wanted to have my mini-itx PC complete within the next couple of weeks but this case has now ensured that will not be happening :D.
 
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case1 said:
For a case like this, 10mm is huge I think :).
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That depends on where you shave that off. If it was 10mm narrower, I agree, that would be a massive difference. But as the case is already very long and the front quite small, reducing the length by 10mm doesn't change much about the size, and, as it was pointed out, would reduce the compatibility with some SFX PSUs.

Of course, ideas are always good, but so many ideas for this case have been mentioned tens of times already, that at some point it becomes dreadful to explain a design decision over and over again. Granted, I'll still do it, you can't expect people to have knowledge if you don't teach them, but if a few of you would take the time to read through this thread, even if it was just picture surfing, it would be easier to understand how and why certain things are like they are.

I'm not saying you can't go smaller than this, but the scope of the A4-SFX is defined by now and you literally can only go so small if you want to fit full-sized GPUs and SFX PSUs in a case.
 
The main problem of removing the 10mm in the front isn't that we are losing the space for the third HDD or space for routing the cables, but we are losing the two front bents and this will have massive influence on the stability of the case. You can test it on a paper.

A normal paper is very wiggly but if you bend two sides it will get stability.
 
dondan said:
The main problem of removing the 10mm in the front isn't that we are losing the space for the third HDD or space for routing the cables, but we are losing the two front bents and this will have massive influence on the stability of the case. You can test it on a paper.

A normal paper is very wiggly but if you bend two sides it will get stability.
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Well in theory, you could just make the bends very sharp, right? Inner radius of ~2.2mm or something. It would completely hurt the aesthetic of the case, though.
 
No, the bend must have a minimal length of 6mm otherwise the machine could not bend it.

bendp4u6h.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies all, including Dan.

With a need for a cable going to the case as it is, due to it having to connect to the PSU - what was the reason that the original idea of the PSU being outside the case, was scrapped. Was it to make it so you don't have to lug around a power supply if you are going to LAN's?
 
The main problem was the price of the DC-DC Powerboard of HD-Plex (85$) and the price of the external Dell 330W AC-DC PSU (160$).
 
Furthermore, the original design had the GPU facing the fans to the motherboard, which would have made using non blower-style-reference cards practically impossible.
 
It would be nice if they added the 2nd front USB port back in. Maybe it's successor could be made a little wider to allow for a slim vertically mounted optical drive?
 
pixelblue said:
It would be nice if they added the 2nd front USB port back in. Maybe it's successor could be made a little wider to allow for a slim vertically mounted optical drive?
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Do you people read a SINGLE post on this thread before posting?
 
dondan said:
Some video material of the A4-SFX:

http://video.golem.de/games/16332/wochenrueckblick-kw-49-2015.html
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Looks great!

I know I'm probably the tiny minority wondering this, but that video got me thinking again, is there any chance you could comment on whether or not you could fit a 3.5" drive in there when using a short graphics card? I know it'd be up to me to make a bracket to secure the drive, but it certainly looks like there's enough space for it, especially when looking at the actual case dimensions.

Someone suggested this idea a while back and I never heard a definitive answer. Disclaimer: I'm only about 50 pages in to reading this thread front to back to I might have missed something.
 
Knolly said:
Looks great!

I know I'm probably the tiny minority wondering this, but that video got me thinking again, is there any chance you could comment on whether or not you could fit a 3.5" drive in there when using a short graphics card? I know it'd be up to me to make a bracket to secure the drive, but it certainly looks like there's enough space for it, especially when looking at the actual case dimensions.

Someone suggested this idea a while back and I never heard a definitive answer. Disclaimer: I'm only about 50 pages in to reading this thread front to back to I might have missed something.
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3.5" drive is 14x10x2.5cm IIRC. In a verical position, you should be able to stuff one in. The only concern is the mounting, since you'd have to design your own bracket.
 
iFreilicht said:
Do you people read a SINGLE post on this thread before posting?
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It irritates the crap out of me as well when folks roll up in here & start spouting off about the changes that need made to a project that has been underway for over two years now. Folks going on about how the chassis will totally fail, because it does not cater to a specific demographic.

"I'm a Water Cooler! Why can I not have a custom loop in this decidedly small chassis! I DEMAND more room for my loop!"

"I want to use this chassis as a HTPC, why can I not have an ODD…?!?"

"I need eight 3.5" HDDs for my RAID, why will this chassis not fit them in…?"

READ THE THREAD, PEOPLE…!!! Design decisions were all made for a REASON, not just because the designer has an intense hatred of water cooling or HTPCs or anything. If the chassis does not meet your specific needs, find another chassis! Do not come into the thread at the last hour and demand things be changed…!

I, for one, really like this chassis. I have read every single post in the thread, so I could be more informed about what the A4-SFX is going to BE. I have since decided that this is not the chassis for me at this time. I am going to do a build-up in the Osmi chassis (and yes, I have read ALL of that thread as well), because I am doing a Hackintosh & that chassis REALLY seems to fit the build more than anything else for me. But I am NOT going to make ridiculous demands for major design changes on the A4-SFX just to make it fit what I want in a SFF chassis…

But I still come to this thread, because I want to SEE the A4-SFX become a shipping product. It is a great design, and will make a great SFF General Purpose / Gaming / Workstation build for many folks!

GAHHH…! [/soapbox}
 
I mean... surely there can be a middleground, right? I haven't finished reading the thread but have been chugging through it slowly over the last few weeks. I don't know if I'll pick one of these up but it's really really cool to see how everything take shape. I know what I'm trying to do isn't what the case is intended for, but isn't it fun to try to stuff even more into one box?

Aircoookie said:
3.5" drive is 14x10x2.5cm IIRC. In a verical position, you should be able to stuff one in. The only concern is the mounting, since you'd have to design your own bracket.
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Yeah, purely looking at the dimensions it SHOULD fit, with some bracket fabrication, I guess I'm just worried that there might be some sort of posts or something on the bottom that would interfere with it. I was just hoping Dan might have a 3.5 handy that he could shove in to double check really quick. The way I see it, it's way easier to fabricate a small bracket than my own SFF case with enough room for an SSD and one 3.5 HDD.

Anyhow, I'll go back to lurking.
 
It's funny really. Right now, in my massive Silverstone case I have:
An ATX mobo. 2 sticks of RAM. 1 video card. 2 SSDs, and one HDD.

The HDD I don't really need. The A4 SFX is literally perfect for what I build.
 
Knolly said:
I mean... surely there can be a middleground, right? I haven't finished reading the thread but have been chugging through it slowly over the last few weeks. I don't know if I'll pick one of these up but it's really really cool to see how everything take shape. I know what I'm trying to do isn't what the case is intended for, but isn't it fun to try to stuff even more into one box?



Yeah, purely looking at the dimensions it SHOULD fit, with some bracket fabrication, I guess I'm just worried that there might be some sort of posts or something on the bottom that would interfere with it. I was just hoping Dan might have a 3.5 handy that he could shove in to double check really quick. The way I see it, it's way easier to fabricate a small bracket than my own SFF case with enough room for an SSD and one 3.5 HDD.

Anyhow, I'll go back to lurking.
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As far as I know the only thing that might get in the way on the floor of the case is the SSD bracket, but I'm pretty sure that's removable.

The thing that bothers me isn't so much people asking "Hey, is this possible", but more when they show up with a 1 day old account or something and say/ demand something should be changed, or say the case is fucked because it doesn't have that specific feature or something.
 
Knolly said:
I mean... surely there can be a middleground, right? I haven't finished reading the thread but have been chugging through it slowly over the last few weeks. I don't know if I'll pick one of these up but it's really really cool to see how everything take shape. I know what I'm trying to do isn't what the case is intended for, but isn't it fun to try to stuff even more into one box?



Yeah, purely looking at the dimensions it SHOULD fit, with some bracket fabrication, I guess I'm just worried that there might be some sort of posts or something on the bottom that would interfere with it. I was just hoping Dan might have a 3.5 handy that he could shove in to double check really quick. The way I see it, it's way easier to fabricate a small bracket than my own SFF case with enough room for an SSD and one 3.5 HDD.

Anyhow, I'll go back to lurking.
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No need to lurk…!

Yes, there is middle ground; the point I was making is there are some who come in here & demand changes be made, just because they have a specific vision of what they want in a chassis.

You want to add in a 3.5" HDD, cool… But you are not demanding that space be made, that the chassis be redesigned…

You acknowledge that compromises would need to be made, namely the need to use an ITX-sized GPU. You acknowledge that a bracket would need to be fabricated for said HDD. You are defining what you want and outlining a way to get it without demanding changes to a two year (plus) old project.

This is totally okay; you see a need & have a solution. Others are simply demanding changes.

There is this, from about half a dozen or so pages back…

dondan said:
Furthermore a 120mm FAN is 120mm wide ; ) My case is 113mm wide so it will not fit in the hdd-bay position. But if you use a short GPU like the AMD Nano you can mount a slim radiator next to it. Maybe I will bring out a bracket for this later, that could be used for the radiator or the 3.25" HDD.

Also a 3.25" HDD will not fit in the hdd-bay position, because it is too long and will collidate with the motherboard-tray.
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So it shows that the designer does listen to our rantings, and is more than open to ideas to improve the chassis that don't require major changes to the chassis as it currently sits…
 
The only wrong thing I see about the case and I would definitely change is that it is not sitting in my desk. HOW CAN THAT EVEN BE?!?! :rolleyes:
 
Curiositie said:
As far as I know the only thing that might get in the way on the floor of the case is the SSD bracket, but I'm pretty sure that's removable.

The thing that bothers me isn't so much people asking "Hey, is this possible", but more when they show up with a 1 day old account or something and say/ demand something should be changed, or say the case is fucked because it doesn't have that specific feature or something.
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Saying if something is possible <> demanding. Sorry if it seems like we are being spoilt children but it isn't our intention.

I am sure it is all feedback for Dan. In terms of projects, from my own personal experience:

a) These sort of comments, can sometimes help designers/creators see demand of certain features, What you see as mere repetition is actually useful data.
b) This could make the designer create changes, even last minute changes - not uncommon in majority of projects, be it a piece of software, a car or an aircraft.

Not pushing for anything as a demand though, Nor saying we are stating anything new, but you know, if x number of people are looking for feature x or y, it could be something to look into for Dan.

I am sure there are reasons for inclusions or exclusions of certain features - which probably have already been mentioned in this thread, but that is not to say everything is concrete, or black and white.

Just look at Ncase M1 and its change log just to see how much changed based on user feedback.

Either way, I am purchasing this as soon as it's out.
 
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Just wanted to say "Thanks dondan!!!"
I have been lurking this thread since its beginning, and have loved the design since the switch to using an SFX power supply. Its been fun to watch its progress. Damn near a perfect case for me, and any changes I need, I can make myself.
Keep up the awesome work.

For all the folks that complain about this case not being perfect for themselves, go design one yourself. Break out some tools and make one. Or go mod a case yourself. Its fun and satisfying.

For all the folks that make nice, useful suggestions that stay within the design goals of the case (and there are a lot of you!), Thanks!

Oh, and dondan, take my money already :)
 
case1 said:
Saying if something is possible <> demanding. Sorry if it seems like we are being spoilt children but it isn't our intention.

I am sure it is all feedback for Dan. In terms of projects, from my own personal experience:

a) These sort of comments, can sometimes help designers/creators see demand of certain features, What you see as mere repetition is actually useful data.
b) This could make the designer create changes, even last minute changes - not uncommon in majority of projects, be it a piece of software, a car or an aircraft.

Not pushing for anything as a demand though, Nor saying we are stating anything new, but you know, if x number of people are looking for feature x or y, it could be something to look into for Dan.

I am sure there are reasons for inclusions or exclusions of certain features - which probably have already been mentioned in this thread, but that is not to say everything is concrete, or black and white.

Just look at Ncase M1 and its change log just to see how much changed based on user feedback.

Either way, I am purchasing this as soon as it's out.
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You're right, I'm sorry if I was being rude. I didn't mean to be. :s
I'll be getting one as soon as I can too. :)
 
I guess I was worried I had rustled too many jimmies, thanks guys!

I hear you with the demands. It's kind of ridiculous to roll up on a near shipping product and be like "but what if you changed everything."

The DAN looks like such an awesome case and I think there will probably be some pretty creative uses for it from people like me with oddball uses. I mean come on, full gaming power with a nice SSD AND a huge hard drive for media storage in 7.25L? I'll make it work and it will be awesome.

ElAntonius said:
It's funny really. Right now, in my massive Silverstone case I have:
An ATX mobo. 2 sticks of RAM. 1 video card. 2 SSDs, and one HDD.

The HDD I don't really need. The A4 SFX is literally perfect for what I build.
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Yeah, for a gaming build I would say a 3.5" is completely unnecessary. My current build though is a combo gaming PC/everyday computer/media server. I hate having separate machines unless absolutely necessary, haha. It's just fun to try to stuff an i5, GTX 970, 512GB SSD and 8TB HDD into as small of a form factor as possible. Using a mini GPU, I'm pretty sure I could stuff all of it in and basically halve the volume of my ML08 I currently use.
 
Knolly said:
Yeah, for a gaming build I would say a 3.5" is completely unnecessary. My current build though is a combo gaming PC/everyday computer/media server. I hate having separate machines unless absolutely necessary, haha. It's just fun to try to stuff an i5, GTX 970, 512GB SSD and 8TB HDD into as small of a form factor as possible. Using a mini GPU, I'm pretty sure I could stuff all of it in and basically halve the volume of my ML08 I currently use.
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I've thought about cramping storage in the A4. Easiest way is to cramp multiple 2.5" 9mm 2TB drives without using the bracket, and use SFX PSU to maximum the bottom space. When the 15mm Spinpoint M10p 4TB drives are out, it's also possible to use those. I'd pool the drives with Stablebit into one single pool.
 
Kemerd said:
Looks really nice. Seems a bit expensive for such a small case, though. You'd think it'd be cheaper.
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Well, let's see:

1) Dan is doing this on his own, with a new company he's forming by himself in the EU (Germany, IIRC).
2) The EU has LOTS of rules for electronics manufacturers.
3) He's contracting with an established manufacturer for a small run (<5000 units probably) who wants to make their own reasonable profit.
4) Every case needs to be shipped somewhere after it leaves the factory.
5) I can't imagine how expensive the packaging is. (materials, initial design, transport, small batch)
6) The PCIe riser alone accounts for maybe 20% of the total cost of the case.
7) Dan needs to make reasonable profit for himself.
8) Manufacturing a small case is likely alot trickier than manufacturing a large case, due to all the manufacturing operations that need to happen practically right on top of each other. Now do it with aluminum.
 
@DonDan

Is the production up and running in the LianLi factory now or do you have some adjustments to make before the final production line can start?

Have you found/selected a distributor in the EU yet?


BR
 
Original the plan was crowdfunding in early dec. and end of it end dec. But now I plan the distribution over a big european reseller that ship the case worldwide. So if I make the deal with them in dec. I will order the riser and case in january. LianLi must build and ship it so you can buy the case in march or april in the webshop.
 
jtd871 said:
Well, let's see:

6) The PCIe riser alone accounts for maybe 20% of the total cost of the case.
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From the final price the riser accounts 25% the case 40% and the rest are fix costs (company costs, tooling fees, replacement parts), shipment costs, my tiny profit, the resellee profit and german tax (19%).
 
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