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

iFreilicht said:
I'd really like to see someone do this in this case, it would be amazeballs. Even if you didn't want to void the PSU warranty, you could mount the PSU with the fan facing inside so you'd have the whole space between PSU and side panel for a radiator + fan, so about 40mm, which is enough for the Silverstone TD-03 SLIM. Sure you'd exhaust directly into the PSU, but you'd also help the airflow of its fan, so maybe that won't matter.
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I wasn't even thinking about using an AIO for that, the whole time I was thinking custom loop. :)

You could maybe get push/pull going if you used slim fans.

Roughed it up in sketchup, might work, though the PSU cables might be an issue.
+ I might have some things mis-aligned.
 
Why this case wasnt made 0.5cm wider ? It would make no difference in volume and all 2+ wide cards with more robust cooling would fit.
 
The case should have been made 130mm wide instead 112mm, all gpus would fit and under case you could possibly mount radiator with 120mm fan for watercooling.
 
There's plenty of amazing GPU's that aren't >2 slots thick. Do you have one that's too thick or something?
130mm wide vs 112mm wide is more than a .5cm gain, and adds over a liter to overall volume.


What do you mean by " all gpus would fit and under case you could possibly mount radiator with 120mm fan for watercooling"?

To reiterate what was said before: The case isn't designed with watercooling in mind, but it might be possible to shoehorn it in if you're determined enough.
 
JFK78 said:
Why this case wasnt made 0.5cm wider ? It would make no difference in volume and all 2+ wide cards with more robust cooling would fit.
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Extra width will actually be detrimental to cooling with 2-slot cards, as the extra space will cause the recycling of hot air.
 
It is great case but it is very expensive 200-220+ tax = 240-260 euro, you can buy CPU and graphic card for that money, and it is just few sheets of aluminium.
 
Let me help you: case is not wide enough and too pricey for you: the case is not for you! I'm glad I could help.
 
The case's expected price is where it should be.
When you make things in small quantities they cost more to make. Also, the riser cable adds some cost.
I agree with pgabor though.

Another thing, if you're spending only $240 on a CPU and GPU you won't be getting much.

In other news my C7 should be arriving on Monday so I'll probably be able to post some comparisons to my current U9B-SE2 setup that night.
 
koolpc said:
Case has to set at a price that is affordable.
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To whom?

Products fit in to market segments and those have target markets. This case only needs to fit in where Dan wants it. You may or may not find yourself there, that doesn't mean the case/price needs to change.
 
JFK78 said:
It is great case but it is very expensive 200-220+ tax = 240-260 euro, you can buy CPU and graphic card for that money, and it is just few sheets of aluminium.
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Well if I had a dime for every person coming in late to the thread and saying this case needs this or that or is too expensive or whatever, then I could probably buy this case for you. ;)
 
Yeah, that irritates the shit outta me…

"Oh…! Look at this 180 page thread on this as yet released chassis…! I will skim the first page & then immediately post asking questions or making statements on things I could be better informed about if I ACTUALLY READ THE ENTIRE THREAD…!!!"
 
The plastic shield looks a little ugly in this image:

picture48sb2.jpg


And also in general, wrinkles aren't very appealing and they're sure to occur when the graphics card is pressed against the shield. Could a more rigid material be used?
 
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QuantumBraced said:
The plastic shield looks a little ugly in this image:

picture48sb2.jpg


And also in general, wrinkles aren't very appealing and they're sure to occur when the graphics card is pressed against the shield. Could a more rigid material be used?
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And the plexi covering the cooling assembly on the GPU is wrinkled as well…?

The plastic sheeting is not wrinkled, you are seeing the light reflecting on the surface, just as on the hard clear plastic on the GPU shroud…

And when the chassis is buttoned up, you would need to get right up on the perforations on the side panel, with a flashlight shining into the same, to see the plastic sheeting at all…

/rolleyes
 
JFK78 said:
It is great case but it is very expensive 200-220+ tax = 240-260 euro, you can buy CPU and graphic card for that money, and it is just few sheets of aluminium.
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If it's "just a few sheets", you could easily make it yourself? The thing is, it's a pretty complicated mess of aluminium sheets that require complex and precise cutting and bending. The final price isn't set in stone, either. If the riser is replaced with the one LianLi supplies, the price will drop.

This case is a premium product made in small numbers. Are you complaining about Ferraris being too expensive for you?

Boil said:
Yeah, that irritates the shit outta me…

"Oh…! Look at this 180 page thread on this as yet released chassis…! I will skim the first page & then immediately post asking questions or making statements on things I could be better informed about if I ACTUALLY READ THE ENTIRE THREAD…!!!"
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QuantumBraced said:
The plastic shield looks a little ugly in this image:

http://abload.de/img/picture48sb2.jpg

And also in general, wrinkles aren't very appealing and they're sure to occur when the graphics card is pressed against the shield. Could a more rigid material be used?
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:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

cowsgomoo said:
Is there a plate cover for the GPU screw area's hole, like for the M1?
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Nope, there's not. But I don't think it was even brought up yet. I guess most people don't care that much. It might even help with hot air exhaust a little bit.
 
iFreilicht said:
Nope, there's not. But I don't think it was even brought up yet. I guess most people don't care that much. It might even help with hot air exhaust a little bit.
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I brought it up because some of us live in regions where creepy crawlies in the house is unavoidable.
 
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Been lurking for about a year now, really looking forward to this case.

Sorry in advance for the off question.

So I want this case to be the center point of my next build, a rendering and chemical simulation workhorse, for personal use. I saw the new broadwell-e chip that intel plans to release (holy crap 10 cores under 1k), but it only sockets into x99 motherboards. In short, does anyone think that a new x99 itx motherboard will launch within the next 6 months or is the AsRock the best we are gonna get?
 
cowsgomoo said:
I brought it up because some of us live in regions where creepy crawlies in the house is unavoidable.
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Oh wow, I never even thought about that! Does that mean that you prefer cases with mesh sidepanels over those with slots or are we talking about crawlies in the area of a cockroach?

kyx said:
Been lurking for about a year now, really looking forward to this case.

Sorry in advance for the off question.

So I want this case to be the center point of my next build, a rendering and chemical simulation workhorse, for personal use. I saw the new broadwell-e chip that intel plans to release (holy crap 10 cores under 1k), but it only sockets into x99 motherboards. In short, does anyone think that a new x99 itx motherboard will launch within the next 6 months or is the AsRock the best we are gonna get?
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I wouldn't expect it. The market for those boards was probably quite small to begin with, and ASRock pretty much has that on lock-down by now. It seems like the focus is shifting more towards Skylake anyway in the consumer market.
 
No idea about the x99 motherboard. However, it may be worth looking into a mini itx board that comes with a Xeon D - these are also broadwell cores, and supposedly there's going to be a 16 core variant in early 2016. The 10 core hedt may still be faster as the Xeon D is supposed to be about power efficiency and thus far has only shipped with 2 channel memory and rather low clock speeds / TDP.
 
iFreilicht said:
Oh wow, I never even thought about that! Does that mean that you prefer cases with mesh sidepanels over those with slots or are we talking about crawlies in the area of a cockroach?
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I guess so but it's an unrealistic request, so I'd at least like my case not to have an entrance for cockroaches, house lizards or big spiders. :)
 
koolpc said:
Who is going to see the plastic when the cover is on?
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Do you use pink underwear with holes in it, just because no one is going to see it? People don't make cable management in the cases only for airflow, they make it to look nice, even if no one sees it...
 
I thought I saw someone in this thread using a tablet as a portable screen... Anyone got details on how to do that?
 
mejobloggs said:
I thought I saw someone in this thread using a tablet as a portable screen... Anyone got details on how to do that?
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They were using a retina iPad display panel with an eDP (Embedded DisplayPort) to DisplayPort adapter. You can buy one of the many different adapters plus a panel and make your own, or buy a prepackaged assembly.
 
Yeah, thought to see a real comparison between L9i and C7, all they say is basically "Yes, C7 is better than L9i, but you can mount a 25mm fan on the Noctua. At idle it's silent and at load it's loud". Nothing we didn't know yet :)
 
dondan said:
The next german review is online with:

6700k
Asus Maximus Impact VIII
AMD Fury Nano
Cryorig C7

http://www.golem.de/news/dan-cases-...rdware-nicht-verpackt-werden-1511-117604.html
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Hi.
I'm not an expert on making reviews but I must say that this review is kind of poor. If you want compare cooler1 with cooler2 there should be some temp and sound levels comparison data table.
Also, why would you put in a super loud card such as the R9 Nano when the chassis is made for full length GPUs? (that utilizes silent cooling solutions)
I'm not saying there is something wrong with the R9 Nano it self but in this case is rather strange due to the open air chassis solution, it's gonna be loud as he**.

I'd love to see a review using the MSI GTX 970 Gaming and/or ASUS GTX 970 Strix.
This chassis really deserves a proper review =)
 
While it kind of sucks that there's no charts or anything, I'm still glad to see more different hardware in the A4, and to have a review in general.


mejobloggs said:
I thought I saw someone in this thread using a tablet as a portable screen... Anyone got details on how to do that?
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It was me. :)

I used an iPad 3 LCD panel, and the Abusemark eDP>DP adapter board and shoved it into an iPad 3 shell so I could use iPad accessories.

My rough how-to.
 
jacobsson said:
Hi.
I'm not an expert on making reviews but I must say that this review is kind of poor. If you want compare cooler1 with cooler2 there should be some temp and sound levels comparison data table.
Also, why would you put in a super loud card such as the R9 Nano when the chassis is made for full length GPUs? (that utilizes silent cooling solutions)
I'm not saying there is something wrong with the R9 Nano it self but in this case is rather strange due to the open air chassis solution, it's gonna be loud as he**.

I'd love to see a review using the MSI GTX 970 Gaming and/or ASUS GTX 970 Strix.
This chassis really deserves a proper review =)
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It isn't simply poor, its shit. 95% of users interested in this sort of case would have done a better review, that you can be sure of it.

It makes me wonder why did dondan send a review unit to such a poor reviewer, because we don't even have shots of the whole thing built, let alone a decent temperature comparison, or sound, or anything at all.

Its just impressive to see such a specialized product in the hands of someone that has so little idea of what the product has to offer.
 
Next one will be PC-Perspective or do you have an other review side that you prefer?

By the way I think Golem.de did a great review. It is the first case review of them normaly the test only GPUs and CPUs in the Hardware section. The A4-SFX is so special that they made an exception. Golem is one of the most visited german IT-Newssides so they generate a high view rate on this project. Too bad that they made no real noise and temp measurement, but I think for this I must send the case to a side with a higher focus on hardware.
 
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dondan said:
Next one will be PC-Perspective or do you have an other review side that you prefer?

By the way I think Golem.de did a great review. It is the first case review of them normaly the test only GPUs and CPUs in the Hardware section. The A4-SFX is so special that they made an exception. Golem is one of the most visited german IT-Newssides so they generate a high view rate on this project. Too bad that they made no real noise and temp measurement, but I think for this I must send the case to a side with a higher focus on hardware.
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Well, I understand that you are protective about reviewers. I would be too, probably.

But lets call things for what they are.

a) The review doesn't even try to highlight what the case is (smallest computer case in the world that accepts full-power hardware).

b) It adds no baseline of any kind (aka some pictures comparing this case with any other mITX in the market).

c) It doesn't review its features, nor try to find where the design compromised.

Like I said, the reviewer had no idea as to what this product brings (or tries to bring); who the target market is, and what such target is looking for on a review, or any other thing, for that matter.

We are talking about a very extreme design... and you send a unit to a team that has absolutely 0 experience about reviewing cases, when you should have focused the most specialized of the websites out there? I don't know... a review such as this might get the spotlight on the project... but I don't think its the right one, since the review doesn't even understand what the product is, let alone it tries to project it.

All in all, we are talking about a very expensive and extreme product. You need to highlight it properly if you want to sell it, and the review that was just posted will not help you do that.

PS: try to remember that most of your potential customers have a common language... and that is english. Try to find some reviewers that use such language, and try to make them focus on the size difference, and how it looks as a complete system on top of a desktop. Heck I know my M1 looks good on renders, and "solo" pictures... but where it shines is on top of my desktop, by the monitor... and specially if you put it side by side with common computer cases. Heck I can only imagine how sexy your product might look... but you need to let somebody who thinks its sexy in the first place to review it. Not somebody who has no interest in a product like this. Can you imagine a photographer taking shots at a model thinking "heck how ugly he/she is?". The pictures would reflect that thought, and so would the composition.
 
I should be getting my C7 tonight, are there any specific benchmarks y'all want to see?
I was planning on starting with my current heatsink and doing 20min idle, 20min loop of firestrike, 20 idle, 20min Prime95/ linX/ something, 20min idle, 1h in AC: Unity
Then repeat with the C7.


@dondan Pcperspective is a good choice i think. :)
 
You are right with the language the next review will be in English. But you said the side isn't interested in my case this is wrong. The side put a lot of work in this review I phoned a lot with the author to arrange the optimum test hardware with the C7, 6700k and Impact VIII. Also the article itself is very great and highlighting all features and honors the great size a lot. For the most sides case reviews are not really important, because they are generating not enough page views like GPUs or CPUs so they have very limited test hardware. Golem ordered every component extra for the review. The next problem is the test values of the hardware (temps and noise). Golem and also the last reviewer Computerbase said it, that this values depending extremely on the hardware that will be used and this is true. So if I send the case to an review side you will only get values of the used hardware and for the most case reviews the test hardware is old. So it will be very hard to compare it with the thousand combinations you can build into it.

I also agree with the comparing picture but the most review sides have to send the old cases back to the manufacture so they have no cases to compare.

Maybe you have a good idea for a review side that can make a test you are looking for.
 
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