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

dondan said:
No I never asked them, i think the Thermalright 100m fan is the best option because a 120mm fan will not fit between IO area and RAM and a 92mm is too small. So Noctua will not have a fan for me.
Click to expand...

My mistake, I thought you mentioned Noctua.
Well, considering that even the stock cooler for the new AMD RYZEN cpus won't fit in your case, your new cooler can't come soon enough.
AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-1700X-170-confirmed.png
 
dondan said:
The gab is necessary for mounting the rentention kit. I hink full copper will end up in a price nobody is ready to pay. But I will check that later.
Click to expand...

personally considering the audience, it hardly matters if this would cost double or triple compared to competition as long as its the ultimate-no-corners-cut-small-profile-full-copper-cooler™ and performs noticeable better than the rest. if you start cutting corners, your basically doing something thats more or less in the market. if youre seriously doing your own cooler, then really do it all the way it should be done ;)
 
Calysto said:
My mistake, I thought you mentioned Noctua.
Well, considering that even the stock cooler for the new AMD RYZEN cpus won't fit in your case, your new cooler can't come soon enough.
AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-1700X-170-confirmed.png
Click to expand...

ive been kinda considering 7 1700 if it performs well. no idea of the stock cooler performance ofcourse, but the fan looks kinda thick on the pic? might fit with slimmer fan...but im kinda pessimist when it comes to stock coolers.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

This! Potentially you could use the ATX screw holes on the mobo next to the PCIe slot as additional mounting points to connect to so the extended weight doesn't strain the CPU backplate to much.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

Imagine that shit with dual 92mm noctua fans!
ZScp799.png
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this:

strix-z270i-gaming-2dzguat.jpg


And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.

StrawKite said:
Imagine that shit with dual 92mm noctua fans!
Click to expand...

A ITX board is 170mm long 2x92mm = 184mm ;)
Furthermore with your layout Asrock x99e ITX will not work with my heatsink.
 
dondan said:
I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this:

strix-z270i-gaming-2dzguat.jpg


And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.
Click to expand...


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!

DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS!!!

Is hard enough to find the components that we like and will work on your case...

Don't take the ram from us Dan!!!
 
dondan said:
I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this: (image)

And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.



A ITX board is 170mm long 2x92mm = 184mm ;)
Furthermore with your layout Asrock x99e ITX will not work with my heatsink.
Click to expand...

As a very excited Sentry owner-to-be, it also uses a PCIe riser. If your heatsink hung over the PCIe slot, it would prevent us from using the primary 2.5" drive mount, but there are a LOT of other solutions for storage. I would really, really love to see something that's got enough cooling capacity to really stand out from the crowd here.

Just in case working with Thermalright doesn't work out, you do have a couple other options.

I know that you haven't gotten in contact with Noctua; that's something I did independently to gauge their interest. I haven't yet heard back from them, but I'll let you know when I do.

I also just reached out to Zalman. I was hesitant about them at first, because their fans are built into their heatsinks, rather than being replaceable with a fan of our choosing, but their cooler worked surprisingly well in the Steam Machine prototypes, so I figured they were at least worth approaching.

Hopefully we can find at least one company that's willing to work with us to design a cooler that takes advantage of these two awesome cases.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...
This is genius. Pretty much any SFF build has a PCI-e extender these days, there is no reason not to use that area.
 
Would the cooler design idea above interfere with the pci ribbon ? if not this is a great idea, though a custom cooler of that size, full copper, and a unique offering I feel will be far too costly.
 
Why not just make the cooler install from the bottom. I know most every one does it from the top for ease of installation but this is basically a SFF only case and I tend to think most of us would rather more fins (better performance) as apposed to making the very rare situation of taking off a CPU cooler easier. I know some people dislike the idea of having to take off the motherboard to get to the CPU but I for one would take better performance over that.
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg


Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Didnt know that you plan to team with Thermalright and already have rendering.

I Asked them yesterday and have talked to them throw Facebook all day.

They where really interested to produce a cooler for this case and sentry.

When i Tell 3000 customers today and more to come and no cooler like this today on the market.
 
No compatibility with the z270 strix is disappointing, seems to be the most popular motherboard for Dan cases. At least in this thread. Its additional M.2 slot is what makes it a winner I think. Please reconsider that limitation if possible!
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg


Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Will this cooler work with the ASRock x99e/itx and it's narrow ilm mount?
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

I definitely agree with this! A lot of cases are using PCI-E extenders, so this idea isn't that niche. The market wanting something like this is going to keep growing as the trend continues with these SFF PCs. Even Silverstone's Raven case could use something like this.
 
Would going for a 100mm fan really do that much difference instead of going for 92mm? As long as all ITX boards (at least most :p) are supported and there are support for the AM4 socket I'm definitely interested :)

*edit*
About the 92mm fan question, that was based mostly on compability concerns.
 
Last edited:
Aircoookie said:
There is a GPU compatibility list and IIRC it was attempted to start some spreadsheets for compatibility.

For the SFX psu, the included stock cables work ok, exact lenghts needed for custom cable vary with GPU size and motherboard layout.

Cable ties seem to work fine, but I'd maybe try using rubber pads in between or something.

Go with SF450. It seems to even be more silent than your SF600.
Click to expand...
I suppose the 600w is starting to be bit overshooting these days, especially as i have no plans to overclock.

but whats the deal with SFX-L's? Like SX500-LG compared to the SF450? ...or did that SFX-L get in the way of 3rd SSD? - so only two SSD's with SFX-L? Then again if i get 2x 1tb SSD's two would be more than enough anyways, so its really more of question whether the SFX-L is really more quiet than the 450w silverstone or not.
 
Jonas Mellkvist said:
If you can remove the heatsink in the back it will be compatible
Click to expand...

It will dissuade all but the bravest/not lazy Strix owners from buying the cooler though. Despite the very informative explanation provided by another poster upthread on how the heatsink is probably useless, count me among the not-brave-and also sort of lazy owners unwilling to remove it until someone else does it and confirms they can still do a light OC without a problem...

I understand you can also replace it with lower profile stuff but then we get into the realm of diminishing returns for a lot of work. Much better to just buy a cooler that works with minimal fuss.
 
illram said:
It will dissuade all but the bravest/not lazy Strix owners from buying the cooler though. Despite the very informative explanation provided by another poster upthread on how the heatsink is probably useless, count me among the not-brave-and also sort of lazy owners unwilling to remove it until someone else does it and confirms they can still do a light OC without a problem...

I understand you can also replace it with lower profile stuff but then we get into the realm of diminishing returns for a lot of work. Much better to just buy a cooler that works with minimal fuss.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY.

dondan, who cares about sentry users. WE backed your project. Pantera_666 had a great idea. use the WHOLE space up to the pcie slot, make it compatible with the latest and greatest mitx board ( strix z270i) . we'll be able to put DOUBLE 92mm fans like StrawKite brilliantly taught about. we'll be able to use ANY RAM size and it will not interfere with any heatsinks on the motherboard. BRILLIANT.


if the sentry guys want a cooler, make THEM a diluted common denominator version.

#COPPER_STRIX
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Cooler looks quite attractive! Thermalright is able to do some good fans as well. However, I think Noctua is very experienced in the heatsink and fan department, so I wouldn't rule them out if they are interested (although I understand the argument with the 100mm Thermalright fan). They might have the resources to do proper physics simulation for heat transfer and air. Not all big heatsinks perform well, which I think is due to poor design and lack of physics simulation. Noctua also have a slim 120mm fan coming as well. Although it's been coming for a long time. Last I heard was H1 2017, though.

To really dope the heatsink up and achieve legendary status: make it black

iippo said:
personally considering the audience, it hardly matters if this would cost double or triple compared to competition as long as its the ultimate-no-corners-cut-small-profile-full-copper-cooler™ and performs noticeable better than the rest. if you start cutting corners, your basically doing something thats more or less in the market. if youre seriously doing your own cooler, then really do it all the way it should be done ;)
Click to expand...

Agree with this.
 
Last edited:
Thermal right is the easiest to adjust. The AXP-100h is 51mm tall without the fan. Only adjustments needed to make the axp-100h in to our perfect cooler is to reduce it by 1mm, extend the fins and add a fan mount underneath the heatsink. This is by far the easiest to implement vs going to any other manufacturer.

Noctua is great but they would have to do far more work than what Thermalright would have to do. A 120mm fan, regardless of how slim it is, will be far less compatible than the 100mm specially in a mitx that is already cramped enough.

I can wait another 3 years for this heatsink.
 
A custom CPU heatsink/cooler sounds great and I would buy one for sure, but it would have to be compatible with the Asus Z270i Strix.

Dan, is there no chance of supporting the Z270i Strix motherboard at all? :( I thought I read here that some had fitted a Cooljag Falcon II to the Z270i Strix without any problems, so would it be too much to ask for a custom CPU cooler design that supports it as well?


Also, thanks for such an amazing little case. I still can't believe how small this thing is sitting on my desk!
 
Ca11idus said:
Thermal right is the easiest to adjust. The AXP-100h is 51mm tall without the fan. Only adjustments needed to make the axp-100h in to our perfect cooler is to reduce it by 1mm, extend the fins and add a fan mount underneath the heatsink. This is by far the easiest to implement vs going to any other manufacturer.

Noctua is great but they would have to do far more work than what Thermalright would have to do. A 120mm fan, regardless of how slim it is, will be far less compatible than the 100mm specially in a mitx that is already cramped enough.

I can wait another 3 years for this heatsink.
Click to expand...

I will not Wait 3 years for this Cooler to come out to the market.

I hope you can get it out to this summer or earlier.

Because of the biggest design with AXP-100 is already done and tested.
 
XstreamHard said:
Dude people are paying 270€ for a fuckin aluminum box (no disrespect the case is awesome but in the end that's what it is). Cooper + nickel plating + direct touch please.



VLP Ram isn't exactly enthusiast, especially as there are basically no 16 GB DDR4 sticks available. I would just go with standard height (heat spreaders are gimmicks anyway).
Click to expand...

I was wondering about why everybody was going for standard ram instead of low profile. Corsair do 32gb Ram (2x16gb) DDR4 3200mhz .... and it is low profile.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/32g...xmAjhOFpPHUZ67RYIcaCAndDf-sNJDxiiTxoCuoTw_wcB
 
 
darksable said:
As a very excited Sentry owner-to-be, it also uses a PCIe riser. If your heatsink hung over the PCIe slot, it would prevent us from using the primary 2.5" drive mount, but there are a LOT of other solutions for storage. I would really, really love to see something that's got enough cooling capacity to really stand out from the crowd here.
Click to expand...

I second this.

I also agree that it's better to use full-copper design if possible, as we're investing 200$ in cases, I don't see problem investing 150$ in cooler.
 
dondon: Will it fit 42mm tall Ripjaw V and 44mm tall TridentZ ram?
Would be nice if you specify what "normal height ram" is.
 
cowsgomoo2 said:
dondon: Will it fit 42mm tall Ripjaw V and 44mm tall TridentZ ram?
Would be nice if you specify what "normal height ram" is.
Click to expand...

I think that means 31mm or so. I.e. no raised heatsink, but instead something like the Corsair LPX or Team Vulcan RAM. Or better yet RAM without any heatspreaders.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top