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Dan A4-SFX "Post your build here" Thread!
- Thread starter Theelichtje
- Start date
jenosmaverick
Limp Gawd
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- May 24, 2017
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- 142
Wow nice! I know this might be abit off topic already but where did you buy you cables and sleeves? Thanks 
Wow nice! I know this might be abit off topic already but where did you buy you cables and sleeves? Thanks
I bought all from https://www.gosumodz.com/ the crimping tool is the most expensive part but its woth it.
MDPC-X is also a good resource for custom cable sleeving
jenosmaverick
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- May 24, 2017
- Messages
- 142
AwakenedBeing
Weaksauce
- Joined
- May 23, 2008
- Messages
- 105
Thank you for this info!
Hello, I figured you people might be interested in my A4 build. It all started with me thinking that I wanted a taller cpu cooler than supported for my A4.
I apologize for the Swedish, but the album and build log originated on sweclockers. If there is interest I could translate the album for you.
Album: https://www.sweclockers.com/galleri/14659-deeshu-a4-sfx
Build log: https://www.sweclockers.com/forum/trad/1492261-deeshu-a4-sfx
I apologize for the Swedish, but the album and build log originated on sweclockers. If there is interest I could translate the album for you.
Album: https://www.sweclockers.com/galleri/14659-deeshu-a4-sfx
Build log: https://www.sweclockers.com/forum/trad/1492261-deeshu-a4-sfx
Holly Holm
n00b
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2016
- Messages
- 5
Where did you get this beauty? I've bought A4 a few days ago, running stock intel cooler and looking for some powerful heatsink. I can't find it in Germany
Julio Espinosa
Weaksauce
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2017
- Messages
- 71
https://www.alpenfoehn.de/en/products/cpu-cooler/black-ridge-enWhere did you get this beauty? I've bought A4 a few days ago, running stock intel cooler and looking for some powerful heatsink. I can't find it in Germany
Hi all,
Being a long time lurker around these here forums, I just wanted to share my first ever SFF build with you all.
It's been a really fun process searching for and picking out parts and building in such a small enclosing. I'm loving my A4.
CPU: i7-9700K (Stock)
CPU Cooler: Alpenföhn Black Ridge
MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX Z390-I GAMING
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Windforce OC
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 3000MHz DDR4 CL15
PSU: Corsair SF600
Storage: Samsung 970 PRO 1TB NVMe M.2
I just finished the build so these are the initial temps.
Temps idle:
CPU: 33°
GPU: 42°
SSD: 38°
MOBO: 36°
Temps Gaming (PUBG @ 1440p):
CPU: 75°
GPU: 83°
SSD: 57°
MOBO: 56°
Avg fps: 176
It will not be used for anything more taxing than gaming, so I wont be going through CPU intensive benchmarks, but I would like to play around with limiting the TDP of the CPU.
Even though 75° isn't too bad, the sound is currently like a jet engine when in-game.
Being a long time lurker around these here forums, I just wanted to share my first ever SFF build with you all.
It's been a really fun process searching for and picking out parts and building in such a small enclosing. I'm loving my A4.
CPU: i7-9700K (Stock)
CPU Cooler: Alpenföhn Black Ridge
MOBO: Asus ROG STRIX Z390-I GAMING
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Windforce OC
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 3000MHz DDR4 CL15
PSU: Corsair SF600
Storage: Samsung 970 PRO 1TB NVMe M.2
I just finished the build so these are the initial temps.
Temps idle:
CPU: 33°
GPU: 42°
SSD: 38°
MOBO: 36°
Temps Gaming (PUBG @ 1440p):
CPU: 75°
GPU: 83°
SSD: 57°
MOBO: 56°
Avg fps: 176
It will not be used for anything more taxing than gaming, so I wont be going through CPU intensive benchmarks, but I would like to play around with limiting the TDP of the CPU.
Even though 75° isn't too bad, the sound is currently like a jet engine when in-game.
Yeah I was actually thinking about doing just that. Might take the temps down a little as well.
illram
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2011
- Messages
- 1,473
Wow. That is incredible!
Nothing too special here...
Peak CPU temperature of 65C (21C room ambient) after 1-hour of Prime95 v. 26.6 small FFT.
- Dan Case A4-SFX V2
- Ryzen 7 1700
- ASRock Fatal1ty AB350-ITX/ac
- 16 Gb (2x8 Gb) G.Skill Ripjaws V
- MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G
- Silverstone ST45SF-G, 450 W Gold v. 2.0
- Noctua NH-L9a ($40)
- Low profile PCIe adapter cables
- CPU Cooler Shroud
Peak CPU temperature of 65C (21C room ambient) after 1-hour of Prime95 v. 26.6 small FFT.
Finally decided to put my A4-SFX v2 to use with a build.
Specs:
Pics below.
Here's what we're working with.
This thing is way smaller than it looks. They really pack these boards with heatsinks.
Once the cooler and RAM are in place you can barely see the PCB.
The cooler back plate would not fit due to a metal plate that was in the way, but Cryorig helpfully supplied plastic washers to use in place of a backplate if the backplate did not fit. With such a small and light cooler, I suppose there is no real need for a backplate.
Testing it out to make sure it works before putting it in the case. Looking good.
Got everything in place, just missing the GPU.
Did my best with cable management, bunching up the wires as tightly as possible so they don't block the case fan. I did most of this before actually putting the PSU in the case. Not shown: I ended up zip-tieing the EPS power cable along the bottom to the case, so it's out of the way a bit more.
I have not seen the PSU fan run once yet... That 80+ Platinum rating is doing its job.
Got the GPU in place. It looks so tiny in the case. It's getting an upgrade soon though so that I can take advantage of my 4K HDR TV.
FIrst power on after full assembly...
It's alive!
And looking good too.
Let's test how fast these drives really are...
Man, that 970 Evo Plus is amazingly fast. I've never had boot times this quick. The Intel 660p disappoints a little in the benchmark and I could not get consistent results. However, it does very well at its intended purpose, which is running my games. And the Seagate SSHD actually performs better than expected, I would not expect the SSD cache to work effectively in a benchmark. The SSD cache is not an important feature as the drive will be used for bulk storage of files (downloads, videos, that sort of thing), it just happens to be pretty cheap and as there don't seem to be any 2.5" 2TB 7200rpm HDDs available, this is the next best thing.
Cinebench score and Speccy for good measure:
I will say, it was tricky building in such a small case, but also a lot of fun. I feel like the challenge in squeezing everything in, and cable managing as best as possible in the limited space made it more fun.
It certainly does not perform as well as it would in a larger case. It should be able to achieve Cinebench R20 scores of around 4700. The Ryzen 7 3700x runs pretty hot in the A4-SFX with that cooler. It boosts to 4.1 Ghz-ish and quickly hits the thermal limit before slowly dropping the clock speed back down. Sustained around 3.9Ghz in AIDA64 stress CPU, only around 3.7 Ghz in Cinebench R20. Stress CPU+FPU+Cache sees it throttling to below stock clocks at 3.55-ish Ghz and may have gone lower had I ran it for longer. However that is not a realistic scenario for actual usage.
I had hoped for better cooling performance considering the 65W TDP, but it's adequate for this time of year. In the summer, thermal throttling may become a real issue. Gaming is never going to stress every single core to 100% though, so it may not actually affect gaming performance.
I have set a custom fan curve in the ASUS AI Suite application to reach 80% fan speed at 75C, and 100% fan speed at 80C. This keeps the fan from rapidly ramping up to max speed as soon as there is even a slight load, as it is quite noisy. But when idle, it's near silent and when plugged into the TV, with me on the couch, I can't hear it over the ambient noise until something starts doing its tasks in the background.
In game in ARK, the CPU hovers around 3.95-4 Ghz, CPU temp at 72-74 C. Which is definitely within acceptable levels, as ARK is a heavy game. As said though, in the summer it might be an issue. If it comes to it, I can take the side panel off in the summer to let it breathe freely.
I tested a little bit before putting the outer case on and the temps were much better.
I think I may take the cooler off to reapply the thermal paste, as it was tricky getting it on straight and I have a feeling the thermal paste might not have made good coverage. But that can wait until I get the LED strip for the case fan.
Specs:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (3.6Ghz base, 4.4Ghz boost
- Cooler: Cryorig C7 RGB (the only 92mm RGB cooler on the market, correct me if I'm wrong)
- Thermal paste: Arctic MX-4
- GPU: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 (reused from old build)
- RAM: 2x16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200mhz CL16
- PSU: Corsair SF600 (80+ Platinum edition)
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming
- Storage: 512 GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe, 2 TB Intel 660p NVMe, 2 TB Seagate FireCuda 2.5" SATA SSHD
- Case fan: Cheap "RGB" fan from AliExpress. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ALS...r-computer-processor-cooling/32922100989.html
- Full parts list here: https://no.pcpartpicker.com/user/Jdbye/saved/sVYJf7
Pics below.
Here's what we're working with.
This thing is way smaller than it looks. They really pack these boards with heatsinks.
Once the cooler and RAM are in place you can barely see the PCB.
The cooler back plate would not fit due to a metal plate that was in the way, but Cryorig helpfully supplied plastic washers to use in place of a backplate if the backplate did not fit. With such a small and light cooler, I suppose there is no real need for a backplate.
Testing it out to make sure it works before putting it in the case. Looking good.
Got everything in place, just missing the GPU.
Did my best with cable management, bunching up the wires as tightly as possible so they don't block the case fan. I did most of this before actually putting the PSU in the case. Not shown: I ended up zip-tieing the EPS power cable along the bottom to the case, so it's out of the way a bit more.
I have not seen the PSU fan run once yet... That 80+ Platinum rating is doing its job.
Got the GPU in place. It looks so tiny in the case. It's getting an upgrade soon though so that I can take advantage of my 4K HDR TV.
FIrst power on after full assembly...
It's alive!
And looking good too.
Let's test how fast these drives really are...
Man, that 970 Evo Plus is amazingly fast. I've never had boot times this quick. The Intel 660p disappoints a little in the benchmark and I could not get consistent results. However, it does very well at its intended purpose, which is running my games. And the Seagate SSHD actually performs better than expected, I would not expect the SSD cache to work effectively in a benchmark. The SSD cache is not an important feature as the drive will be used for bulk storage of files (downloads, videos, that sort of thing), it just happens to be pretty cheap and as there don't seem to be any 2.5" 2TB 7200rpm HDDs available, this is the next best thing.
Cinebench score and Speccy for good measure:
I will say, it was tricky building in such a small case, but also a lot of fun. I feel like the challenge in squeezing everything in, and cable managing as best as possible in the limited space made it more fun.
It certainly does not perform as well as it would in a larger case. It should be able to achieve Cinebench R20 scores of around 4700. The Ryzen 7 3700x runs pretty hot in the A4-SFX with that cooler. It boosts to 4.1 Ghz-ish and quickly hits the thermal limit before slowly dropping the clock speed back down. Sustained around 3.9Ghz in AIDA64 stress CPU, only around 3.7 Ghz in Cinebench R20. Stress CPU+FPU+Cache sees it throttling to below stock clocks at 3.55-ish Ghz and may have gone lower had I ran it for longer. However that is not a realistic scenario for actual usage.
I had hoped for better cooling performance considering the 65W TDP, but it's adequate for this time of year. In the summer, thermal throttling may become a real issue. Gaming is never going to stress every single core to 100% though, so it may not actually affect gaming performance.
I have set a custom fan curve in the ASUS AI Suite application to reach 80% fan speed at 75C, and 100% fan speed at 80C. This keeps the fan from rapidly ramping up to max speed as soon as there is even a slight load, as it is quite noisy. But when idle, it's near silent and when plugged into the TV, with me on the couch, I can't hear it over the ambient noise until something starts doing its tasks in the background.
In game in ARK, the CPU hovers around 3.95-4 Ghz, CPU temp at 72-74 C. Which is definitely within acceptable levels, as ARK is a heavy game. As said though, in the summer it might be an issue. If it comes to it, I can take the side panel off in the summer to let it breathe freely.
I tested a little bit before putting the outer case on and the temps were much better.
I think I may take the cooler off to reapply the thermal paste, as it was tricky getting it on straight and I have a feeling the thermal paste might not have made good coverage. But that can wait until I get the LED strip for the case fan.
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Received an RTX 2080 Super today, let's upgrade that old GTX 970.
Specifically, the EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Gaming, the only non-reference RTX 2080 Super I found that was dual slot and would actually fit.
Also got myself a nice wireless mouse, I'm going to need it since I'm playing on the TV and the only wireless mouse I have is an old Logitech laptop mouse not designed for gaming.
Fits perfectly with just enough room for the cabling on the right side.
And with the case back on. Man, it sure would be nice if there wasn't so much cable.
It looks like the intake fan is lit up, but that's actually my motherboard shining on it. Haven't received the addressable RGB LED strip yet.
And finally some benchmarks comparing my old GTX 970 to the new RTX 2080 Super. The difference is night and day.
It actually maxed out the VR score... Guess I should get a nice VR headset. Not quite ready for future VR though.
It's not the most powerful RTX 2080 Super model given the smaller heatsink compared to all of the others, but there's still some headroom for overclocking. Pretty happy with the performance so far in the little testing I have done in games. I was considering returning it for a RTX 2070 Super which is supposed to have better bang for the buck, but I think I might need all of this performance, even if it's only 12% more FPS than the RTX 2070 Super and costs 33% more. Still a much better value than the 2080 Ti.
I'm also considering getting some CableMod cables. They're not exactly cheap, but even when I did my best job to bunch up the wires so they wouldn't get in the way, they're still making the window bulge out a little on the motherboard side. There's just too much cable and nowhere good to put it.
I did get a 20% off code with either the mobo or the PSU, so why not make use of it.
Specifically, the EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Gaming, the only non-reference RTX 2080 Super I found that was dual slot and would actually fit.
Also got myself a nice wireless mouse, I'm going to need it since I'm playing on the TV and the only wireless mouse I have is an old Logitech laptop mouse not designed for gaming.
Fits perfectly with just enough room for the cabling on the right side.
And with the case back on. Man, it sure would be nice if there wasn't so much cable.
It looks like the intake fan is lit up, but that's actually my motherboard shining on it. Haven't received the addressable RGB LED strip yet.
And finally some benchmarks comparing my old GTX 970 to the new RTX 2080 Super. The difference is night and day.
It actually maxed out the VR score... Guess I should get a nice VR headset. Not quite ready for future VR though.
It's not the most powerful RTX 2080 Super model given the smaller heatsink compared to all of the others, but there's still some headroom for overclocking. Pretty happy with the performance so far in the little testing I have done in games. I was considering returning it for a RTX 2070 Super which is supposed to have better bang for the buck, but I think I might need all of this performance, even if it's only 12% more FPS than the RTX 2070 Super and costs 33% more. Still a much better value than the 2080 Ti.
I'm also considering getting some CableMod cables. They're not exactly cheap, but even when I did my best job to bunch up the wires so they wouldn't get in the way, they're still making the window bulge out a little on the motherboard side. There's just too much cable and nowhere good to put it.
I did get a 20% off code with either the mobo or the PSU, so why not make use of it.
Attachments
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What SSD temperatures do you get? I have very simmilar setup to yours with the same mb and ssd so wonder how efficient the stock ssd radiator is on 570-i. I already got 3-rd party one with built-in mini fan just in case.
I don't know what normal temps are for NVMe SSDs, but I did some tests.
Just after coming out of sleep mode, the Samsung under the m.2 heatsink was at 42C, and the Intel 660p underneath the mobo at 40C. Ambient temp around 22C. Checking temps with AIDA64.
Running Furmark stress test and AIDA64 stress CPU simultaneously for 10 minutes to heat everything up (which is an unrealistic load as you probably know), the temps climb to 62 for the Samsung and 58 for the Intel respectively. Which sounds like a lot to me, and they looked like they were just going to keep climbing. Though they are both rated for up to 70C so that may be fine, until you start actually writing anything to them and they throttle... Luckily this should not be a problem in games, as they only read data in bursts, and load times in games are very fast with the Intel SSD.
Giving everything 15 minutes to cool back down, the temps stabilized at 55C for the Samsung and 52C for the Intel.
Based on that you might think the m.2 heatsink is worse than no heatsink at all, but when reading/writing data the Intel actually heats up a lot more.
Running WinDirStat on both drives simultaneously, the Intel climbed all the way to 70C and the Samsung stabilized at 56C. This may have been a fluke however as when rerunning it right after, the Samsung got to 57C and the Intel stayed at 52C and did not increase at all. Maybe the data is being cached in DRAM or SLC.
Copying some large files (around 60 GB total) from one folder to another on the Samsung got the temp up to 63C.
Doing the same on the Intel got the temp up to 73C before it throttled hard down to 20MB/s. Not good. As the copying went down it started throttling even harder down to only 7MB/s. I stopped the copy at this point as it was going to take forever. I was hoping the 92 mm case fan would help avoid things like this, but it doesn't seem to be helping much, if at all. I guess the fresh air isn't making its way into the small space behind the motherboard.
Are there any slim heatsinks that can be used on a m.2 SSD underneath the motherboard? Maybe coupling the SSD onto the metal plate behind the motherboard with a thermal pad would help? Or might that make things worse when the GPU is in use?
I'm not sure what the Intel SSD is doing now. It's still hovering around 69-73C, and obviously throttling from the spikes in the temperature graph. Maybe it's busy clearing the SLC cache after I deleted the files I copied? But it should just need to mark the space as free.
Edit: It took about 20 minutes to start cooling back down.
Edit: I redid the Intel SSD copy test later on, it started at 700MB/s, throttled down to about 300MB/s and got about halfway before throttling down to 7MB/s, but it stayed around 300MB/s for most of the copy operation and only throttled down briefly. Not sure what was wrong the first time.
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I decided to redo the power cable routing since I had some ideas on how to route it better.
Sadly, routing the power cables along the front in the HDD compartment did not work out as the wires were blocking the power button assembly on the outer shell and there was just not room to route the cables there.
It took about 1.5 hours before ending up with a final routing, which I feel is the best possible routing for my particular setup. It's rather tedious, especially when I have to get cables through narrow gaps, or something doesn't work out and I have to redo the wiring, but I think it's a lot of fun. It just feels so good when it's all back together and I know I did a good job.
Here are some comparisons for your enjoyment. The size of the bundle of wires underneath the PSU is now small enough that the side panel closes easily without bulging out the window, and the clutter next to the GPU is reduced to about half.
Motherboard side:
Before:
After:
GPU side:
Before:
After:
I think this is as good as it can get until I get some CableMod cables.
What do you guys think?
Sadly, routing the power cables along the front in the HDD compartment did not work out as the wires were blocking the power button assembly on the outer shell and there was just not room to route the cables there.
It took about 1.5 hours before ending up with a final routing, which I feel is the best possible routing for my particular setup. It's rather tedious, especially when I have to get cables through narrow gaps, or something doesn't work out and I have to redo the wiring, but I think it's a lot of fun. It just feels so good when it's all back together and I know I did a good job.
Here are some comparisons for your enjoyment. The size of the bundle of wires underneath the PSU is now small enough that the side panel closes easily without bulging out the window, and the clutter next to the GPU is reduced to about half.
Motherboard side:
Before:
After:
GPU side:
Before:
After:
I think this is as good as it can get until I get some CableMod cables.
What do you guys think?
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Thiagoknop
n00b
- Joined
- May 22, 2020
- Messages
- 0
Hello. I building the same pc. I still need to buy the cpu cooler . I have ddr sfx and it will works but I’m not sure if I will have to remove the m.2 dissipador ! Did you need to did that?
Thiagoknop
n00b
- Joined
- May 22, 2020
- Messages
- 0
Hello. I building the same pc. I still need to buy the cpu cooler . I have ddr sfx and it will works but I’m not sure if I will have to remove the m.2 dissipador ! Did you need to did that?