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

Bump_eD said:
sorry it has to be silver lol, i have 3 of the v1's i bought from all over and it makes my office look very nice and professional
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Can't message you. I'm not looking to make a profit just want to swap cases. It also depends on your location.
 
Bump_eD said:
located in atlanta, what case are you looking for?
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I'm going to back the Ghost S1 and wait till that cones out. I followed the dan case a4 for over a year before the kickstarter and then the production time and shipping time. Waiting for the Ghost shouldn't be a problem.

I am driving up to Virginia in December and we could meet up for a sale.
 
Been testing my L9a and Ryzen 1700 with my new shroud/cold air feed and I really noticed what a huge difference the distance between the case and the wall makes. 2" from the wall results in 69° at 2100rpm in prime 95 at the settings specified in the Google docs spreadsheet. In free space on my desk gives 66° at 2000rpm... Huge difference!

Pretty happy with my modified l9a, it was running at 2500rpm to maintain 69°, now it takes 2100 to maintain the same temperature. Both with the case about 2" from the wall... The difference between the two fan speeds in terms of noise is alot, I'd say it's twice as noisy at 2500 than 2100. I'll post some pics soon.

Edit it's stabilised at 1875rpm @ 67° in free space at my desk now. Get those case's away from the wall!!
 
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dondan said:
Both CPU will work and you should pick that one that is the best for your use case.
Many customers are afraid that modern CPUs like 7700k and 8700k becomes very hot under Prime95 (stability test software). But this isn't a real test scenario. Nearly no software or game can generate the same temperatures. If the CPU reach 90°C in Prime95 the temps will be around 15-20% better in games. If you delid your CPU you can save another 10-20°C. If you also undervolt your CPU another 5°C.

So I whould recoment a i5 8400 or i7 8700 with the Noctua L9i or Cooltek LP53+ Noctua A9x14 fan. And no the K CPUs aren't worth the extra money in my opinion.
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Great, thank you very much for your feedback. May I ask why you wouldnt recommend the C7 - is it due to noise levels or do the other two coolers simply just perform better?
 
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richiegore said:
Been testing my L9a and Ryzen 1700 with my new shroud/cold air feed and I really noticed what a huge difference the distance between the case and the wall makes. 2" from the wall results in 69° at 2100rpm in prime 95 at the settings specified in the Google docs spreadsheet. In free space on my desk gives 66° at 2000rpm... Huge difference!

Pretty happy with my modified l9a, it was running at 2500rpm to maintain 69°, now it takes 2100 to maintain the same temperature. Both with the case about 2" from the wall... The difference between the two fan speeds in terms of noise is alot, I'd say it's twice as noisy at 2500 than 2100. I'll post some pics soon.

Edit it's stabilised at 1875rpm @ 67° in free space at my desk now. Get those case's away from the wall!!
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From above, my noise has dropped alot with the fan rpm drop from 2500 to 2100 both @ 69° but if I didn't have my case 2" from the wall it would be ridiculously quiet at 1875rpm at 67°. The air gets recirculated from the top when you have the case close to the wall, I can't believe the difference in cooling it makes. I think I will see how it works with the fan reversed if I get time tonight.
 
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Ok just to update everyone, I reversed the fan and it eventually ramped the fan to max 2500rpm. So my previous results stand, 2100rpm for 69° vs. 2500rpm before so a 12% reduction in fan speed and a significant reduction in fan noise. Both these results are with the case 2" from the wall.

My biggest finding though is how big a difference the cases distance from the wall makes. It stabilised at 1875rpm @ 67° when pulled away from the wall.

Going to test with the low noise adaptor next, see how much hotter it gets when limited to ~1800rpm.
 
Ca11idus said:
I'm going to back the Ghost S1 and wait till that cones out. I followed the dan case a4 for over a year before the kickstarter and then the production time and shipping time. Waiting for the Ghost shouldn't be a problem.

I am driving up to Virginia in December and we could meet up for a sale.
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how much and when?
 
Now imagine what could be done by building the system from scratch to use the biggest fan possible. Perhaps a 140mm x 15mm. TY-14013R or PRO-USV14 perhaps. I wonder what would change about the case design, or just the heatsink, or the duct...

richiegore said:
Ok just to update everyone, I reversed the fan and it eventually ramped the fan to max 2500rpm. So my previous results stand, 2100rpm for 69° vs. 2500rpm before so a 12% reduction in fan speed and a significant reduction in fan noise. Both these results are with the case 2" from the wall.

My biggest finding though is how big a difference the cases distance from the wall makes. It stabilised at 1875rpm @ 67° when pulled away from the wall.

Going to test with the low noise adaptor next, see how much hotter it gets when limited to ~1800rpm.
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When I tested a large slim fan (120mm) I didn't see a noticeable improvement and if I remember correctly, someone told me it had to do with the blades of the fan extending beyond the heatsink, as the interior part of the blades closer to the hub are worse for cooling than the outer edge of the fan blade. So you would want a big heatsink to match the fan circumference, which would only depend on the motherboard, RAM, etc. not the case.
 
illram said:
When I tested a large slim fan (120mm) I didn't see a noticeable improvement and if I remember correctly, someone told me it had to do with the blades of the fan extending beyond the heatsink, as the interior part of the blades closer to the hub are worse for cooling than the outer edge of the fan blade. So you would want a big heatsink to match the fan circumference, which would only depend on the motherboard, RAM, etc. not the case.
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The duct puts it all through the heatsink :)
 
bAMtan2 said:
Now imagine what could be done by building the system from scratch to use the biggest fan possible. Perhaps a 140mm x 15mm. TY-14013R or PRO-USV14 perhaps. I wonder what would change about the case design, or just the heatsink, or the duct...
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Honestly, I don't know if I would change it at all. It's works perfectly for me, I'm only really tinkering by adding the fan duct. Prime95 is not a normal load, that said it's nice to know the case will be pretty quiet when I do some 3D rendering again. Not that it was that bad at 2500rpm.

That said, I might consider adding space for 3 A9x14mm fans in the top, I think that would stop the external recirculation I found when the case is near a wall and it would keep the form factor almost the same.

The only other thing I'd do is try to drop the GPU down a bid further.

Again though, during normal usage the case is perfect, even heavy loads aren't a problem. The only real issue is that pc users love to tinker with their setups, they get board and can't resist trying to overclock a bit, then a bit more then suddenly its too much for the case. It's a game in and of itself to tweak your PC, but you have to know when to call it quits and use your pc for what it's intended for, be that gaming or work or both.
 
Uhm another noob question. Since you guys are all talking about fans, I know we can put a 92mm rather than an hdd on V2. Will it better for the fan to be intake or exhaust? Thanks :D
 
Here are two pictures of an epic x299 build of an German based A4-SFX customer:

Full-Sys Specs:
AsRock X299E-ITX
Intel i9-7920X, 12 Core,
Asetek 545LC + Noctua NF-A9x14
4x Ballistix Sport LT 16GB DDR4 2666 (64GB)
Samsung 960 Pro 2TB
Corsair SF600
EVGA GTX 1080Ti FTW3 12 Gbps Elite

20171203_112100ffsh3.jpg

20171203_112033x3sne.jpg
 
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Two questions:

1) what are the temps on this cooler and cpu under full load (rendering/compiling) ?

How would that compare to one of dynatron's radiators + a proper fan on top?

2) did you have to take the frame apart to install it?

The thing is, while I get it that it's nice to have water cooling at all for some more standard builds like 8700K, and while you can't really fit any other X299 cooler inside, still this combo of 140W TDP CPU and small 92mm AIO feels way off.

This GPU looks badass inside the frame though :)
 
This setup is from a customer, but he provided some prime95 values. The average temp was 83°C some cores are in the 70th and some in the 90th. So in rendering software the temps should be better.
 
Awesome. This is a V1 case I presume. Did he need to drill any mounting holes for the radiator on the bottom or does it fit without modding? I haven't looked at the bottom of my A4 in a while I forget what it looks like down there...
 
Hello Folks,

I want to build up my Dan A4 in the next days/weeks. First I'll try it aircooled, but I've ordered the aio solution yet for the dan a4 v2....

planned components:
i7-8700 (delid planned)
32GB DDR4 3200
ASRock Z370 Fatal1ty Gaming itx/ac or Asus Strix Z370-I
Samsung evo 960 1TB M2.ssd
Evga 1080 Ti SC Black Edition iCX
Corsair RM650X or Corsair SF600
Cooltec LP53 & Noctua NF-A9x14

Gerade beim Netzteil hatte ich das SFX-L zuerst rausgesucht, dann aber überlegt, ob die L-Variante für den späteren AIO darunter nicht zu groß bauen würde. Ist dem so? Is das SF600 Platztechnisch vorzuziehen?

Bin beim Board hin und hergerissen. Asus hat nen anderen Namen und die Board-Kühler sehen besser geeignet aus. ASRock is da Namenstechnisch bzw. von der Qualität früherer Boards nicht so rühmlich gewesen.. Die OnBoardkühler sind da etwas schwächer, aber dafür hat das Board nen USB-C 3.1 und Thunderbolt-Anschluß und die WLAN-Antenne ist nicht so ein Klopper, wie bei Asus.

Gibt's eigentlich in Sachen WLAN-Antennen irgedwas geeigneteres/passenderes fürs DAN A4? Ich hab nen iMac - da sind die Antennen halt im Gehäuse bereits integriert.

Damn, I'was writing it in german.. lol...
 
Thanks Shaav

this was one of my questions indeed. I had this in my mind too. The sfx-l would be to large for the aio-solution. Thanks!

The other question is about the mainboard. Would you take asus or asrock? My feeling is with the bigger passive boardcoolers of the asus and the brand itself better. But asrock has this usb-c thunderbolt Interface (may be necessary in future for some reasons).

Are there smaler WLAN antennas - as this big shark-thing of asus?
 
Nope. Only low profile fans. Ugh I still think there's only a number of Ryzen users with Dan A4. Makes me skeptical of going Ryzen since I just game with my pc.
 
Does anyone know/confirm the diameter of the AIO tubes for the Asetek 545LC. Want to try and work out how tall my RAM modules can be and still allow the side panel on etc. It looks like it will be tight… I know certain motherboards (AsRock X299E-ITX) there is plenty of room/no issue… but for a more typical layout of motherboard - then the tubes need to run over the RAM - thanks in advance for any info
 
Just in case, how easy is it to replace the harddrives in the top and bottom bays? Can I just remove the case panels and then unscrew the bays, or will I have to remove other parts too?
 
Gotsche said:
The other question is about the mainboard. Would you take asus or asrock? My feeling is with the bigger passive boardcoolers of the asus and the brand itself better. But asrock has this usb-c thunderbolt Interface (may be necessary in future for some reasons).
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Those heatsinks on the Asus are worse than useless (I mean that literally) particularly if you are buying a non-K chip and not overclocking any components. For your mainboard just focus on what features you need. Last gen the Asus Z270 was popular primarily because I believe it was one of the few ITX boards with two M.2 slots and could boot from NVMe, not sure if that is an issue with the Z370 boards. Also although I usually like Asus's features and their software is a usually more polished than their competitors', their Z270 from last year had issues with RAM voltages causing bizarre boot problems. I have the Z270 in my Dan case and when it works it's great but I could have done without the anxiety inducing boot issues. So in my not so humble opinion the "Asus quality" is a non-factor. For my part I have never really had any problems with competitor boards, and ASRock usually does a good job competing on features at a lower price...
 
jenosmaverick said:
Nope. Only low profile fans. Ugh I still think there's only a number of Ryzen users with Dan A4. Makes me skeptical of going Ryzen since I just game with my pc.
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I think there are quite a few, you just don't hear from them much because the slap an noctua L9a on and job done, no heat issues. All my duct mods are just for fun. Probably the best CPU for gaming is the 1600x, same gaming performance as the 1800x but cheaper and less heat than an 1800x. All indications are that an 1800x would be fine to though but I haven't seen any proper benchmarks. My 1700 runs cool @ 69° in prime95 with the l9a.
 
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jenosmaverick said:
Nope. Only low profile fans. Ugh I still think there's only a number of Ryzen users with Dan A4. Makes me skeptical of going Ryzen since I just game with my pc.
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but on website it says max. height with Window Kit 54.5mm.
AMD SPIRE is 54mm what's the problem?
 
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