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

Anyone undervolting just with a negative offset rather than using manual? If so what's working for you?

I did an offset undervolt this weekend. I am running i7-6700k with the c7 heatsink+noctua fan.
Set the multiplier to 39 with baseclock of 100. Turbo mode disabled.
My stock voltage was 1.280 and I am now runing with offset -0.130 and everything is fine so far.
Have not yet done any real testing except for a 6 minute CPU-Z stress test and from this i saw 5 C lower temps. But this is still unconclusive until I've done some better testing.
 
I did an offset undervolt this weekend. I am running i7-6700k with the c7 heatsink+noctua fan.
Set the multiplier to 39 with baseclock of 100. Turbo mode disabled.
My stock voltage was 1.280 and I am now runing with offset -0.130 and everything is fine so far.
Have not yet done any real testing except for a 6 minute CPU-Z stress test and from this i saw 5 C lower temps. But this is still unconclusive until I've done some better testing.

I also undervolted mine with max multiplier 39 but turbo mode enabled (I5-7600, LH-N9i + NF-A9x14) using offset.
I tested a few things, using the Asus tool I set the multiplier to 39 and offest -0,15 and was able to run it stable (prime test), but as soon as I put those settings in bios I was not able to boot. I now run with -0,07 offset stable which is about 0,97 VCore. Had a boot fail yesterday but sceond boot was successfull, will see if first boot works today. Prime and gaming run stable with about 20 °C less than at CPU stock settings (about 95°C to about 74°C).
Somehow Asus overclocks the CPU by 0,5 MHz per multiplier which is about +20 MHz. Was not able to deactivate this oc, someone know how (Asus z270i)?
 
I also undervolted mine with max multiplier 39 but turbo mode enabled (I5-7600, LH-N9i + NF-A9x14) using offset.
I tested a few things, using the Asus tool I set the multiplier to 39 and offest -0,15 and was able to run it stable (prime test), but as soon as I put those settings in bios I was not able to boot. I now run with -0,07 offset stable which is about 0,97 VCore. Had a boot fail yesterday but sceond boot was successfull, will see if first boot works today. Prime and gaming run stable with about 20 °C less than at CPU stock settings (about 95°C to about 74°C).
Somehow Asus overclocks the CPU by 0,5 MHz per multiplier which is about +20 MHz. Was not able to deactivate this oc, someone know how (Asus z270i)?

I first tried to use the Asus AI Suite 3. I found that piece of shit software to be incredebly unreliable and giving some backgroud boost to the baseclock and what not. So i uninstalled it and am now doing everything in bios for much better results.
I would recommend doing everything through bios. Also the offset you are able to run will greatly vary from unit to unit. I found that the -0.05 to -0.07 range is quite common.
 
My SF450 fan doesnt turn on until my system is running really hot, so the 15mm thin noctua fan will be helpful for the psu at idle loads, but at full rpm even the noctua does push a little more air than what is naturally exhausted from the gpu fan but not significantly more.

I think if you have at least 25mm of spacer, you will be able to fit in a 25mm thick fan and if that generates enough airflow it will be worth the effort. Extra megative pressure in the case will help draw air into the case and should help reduce temps, well at least in theory for now.

I personally want to see fan mounting tabs added to the top frame in addition to the bottom one, but this somewhat needs to be complimented with a psu spacer kit,
Longer countersunk bolts with an unthreaded spacer, or a long motherboard standoff type spacer should be sufficient.

Which GPU do you use? As already wrote, my SF450 is the loadest in idle and under load. In idle I set the CPU cooler to about 500 rpm and the EVGA Gtx 1080 FTW cooler to about 200 rpm. Both are quiet, but only the PSU fan makes a little bit of noise, running at low speed all the time (the PSU air-output is not hot, with or without GPU back to back does not make a difference). Under load PSU fan is at 100% and a little bit more anoying than GPU und CPU fan.
Guess I am going to write Corsair about it.

I first tried to use the Asus AI Suite 3. I found that piece of shit software to be incredebly unreliable and giving some backgroud boost to the baseclock and what not. So i uninstalled it and am now doing everything in bios for much better results.
I would recommend doing everything through bios. Also the offset you are able to run will greatly vary from unit to unit. I found that the -0.05 to -0.07 range is quite common.

Thank you for the tip, in this case I will do that. I used to use it to show CPU stats (clock, themp, fanspeed) but the update frequenzy is low and there are better tools to show those.
 
im starting to think we gotta mod our PSU to get them to be quieter, i dont understand why they cant use quieter bearings/motor?
 
illram: Yes I know some modders and enthusiast are switching the 7mm stand offs for 4mm ones to get some milimeters more space. I think the numbers of user who did this is less then 1% of all customers. But the other 99% of my customers will get benifits of the stemp in stand offs because they will never come out while unscrewing the mobo.
Well, weren't the "1%" the ones that made your project happen?
 
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Looking forward to the V2. The only reason why I didn't buy the V1 was because it didn't have a PCIe cover
 
Hey everyone,

Been following for a long time. I received the case last week (US). LOVE IT! Just put the build together over the weekend. I will post picture in the other thread when I get a chance. I have a delidded 7700k and Asus z270i with the C7 heatsink and a 100mm Thermalright fan on it. Noise is pretty quiet unless its running at full rpm. My idle temps after being on for awhile seems to hover around 40C is this normal? I actually have a stable overclock at 4.8 GHz using the Asus Suite III. Complete noob on messing with the BIOS. Never overclocked before. I am coming from am i7-930 build (about 7 years ago?)
 
I did an offset undervolt this weekend. I am running i7-6700k with the c7 heatsink+noctua fan.
Set the multiplier to 39 with baseclock of 100. Turbo mode disabled.
My stock voltage was 1.280 and I am now runing with offset -0.130 and everything is fine so far.
Have not yet done any real testing except for a 6 minute CPU-Z stress test and from this i saw 5 C lower temps. But this is still unconclusive until I've done some better testing.

Thanks. I'm trying to calculate my offset by looking at the vid at idle and load, and poring over old hwinfo dumps, and comparing it to the .035 offset I did last night, it's hard to tell a difference. I am seeing a minor decrease in load temps but not idle. I'm trying to find the right undervolt to maintain the same clocks and turbo and all the other fun stuff.

Anyone else got a 7700K negative offset they can share?
 
With undervolting it is the same as for overclocking. It depends on your cpu (silicon lottery). So a list will not give you any information what your cpu can handle. Nornaly is a offset value between -0,05V and -0,2V. Start with a offset of -0,05V run Prime95 for 30min and then reduce in 0,025 steps til you found the lowest value possible. Verify the final value with a 3 hours Prime run.
 
Thanks. I know every chip is different just looking for ballparks as to if I am wildly off. I tried -.035 based on looking at my VID stats at idle and load, which did basically nothing, but was stable in Prime. I tried going down from there, but windows is crashing immediately after logging in, repeatedly, even at -.04v. I'm inexperienced in over/underclocking so this is taking me longer to get a grip on everything.

However I am unsure if that is related to the undervolt or something else because I had a whole bunch of unrelated issues having to do with multiple windows installs and multiple boot loaders. I think to do this right I need to move my bootloader to the right drive, failing that wipe both my drives, start all over with windows, and then try undervolting again so I can properly troubleshoot and isolate if boot problems are voltage related or not. Yay!
 
im starting to think we gotta mod our PSU to get them to be quieter, i dont understand why they cant use quieter bearings/motor?
Which GPU do you use? As already wrote, my SF450 is the loadest in idle and under load. In idle I set the CPU cooler to about 500 rpm and the EVGA Gtx 1080 FTW cooler to about 200 rpm. Both are quiet, but only the PSU fan makes a little bit of noise, running at low speed all the time (the PSU air-output is not hot, with or without GPU back to back does not make a difference). Under load PSU fan is at 100% and a little bit more anoying than GPU und CPU fan.
Guess I am going to write Corsair about it.

don't know what you guys are on about. I got the sf450 and it's the most silent thing in my system. never turns it's fans on, as my gpu, a zotac 1070 gtx amp edition, both are silent, the fans never spin even underload it takes a little while for them to activate and then they are silent. try to free up some space bellow them like I did. maybe it help in convecting the heat with fresh outside air..
 
don't know what you guys are on about. I got the sf450 and it's the most silent thing in my system. never turns it's fans on, as my gpu, a zotac 1070 gtx amp edition, both are silent, the fans never spin even underload it takes a little while for them to activate and then they are silent. try to free up some space bellow them like I did. maybe it help in convecting the heat with fresh outside air..

Same here... I can't hear a thing unless I'm playing a game and that's when the gpu fans kick in. Otherwise it's dead silent - no fans running at all with just normal internet/email etc usage.
 
Ok, I've managed to mount the Cooljag Falcon II on my asrock X99E-ITX AC motherboard inside the DAN A4-SFX for my X99 build.

I didn´t cut the thermalright narrow bracket as jb1 did in other post, because it perfectly fits with the parts that I've used.

Here you have the process explained by pictures.


All the parts that I've used
1.jpg


Screw in the corsair separators
1.jpg


Mount the plate on them this way, and screw in the nuts
1.jpg



I didn't put the top plate as i dont think it does anything, if the fins on it are cut. I put the APX100 mounting plate upside down like a "U" but you can put it the other way. I also put some rubber tape between the fan and the radiator for noise reducing.
1.jpg



I managed to screw in the plate with a small flat screwdriver through the fins, although the screws are philips. At the end I bent the fins back to be straight. (be careful, before screwing through the fins, bend them to have enough space to operate with the screwdriver without touching them, because it can scratch them while screwing and some metal dust may fall onto the motherboard and it can make a short)

If you can find something else to put instead of that nuts, they hit the pipes in the right (as you can see in the picture) a little and I didn't like it.
1.jpg


As you can see on the left I've used some thin thread to hook the fan, as the bridles are too thick and the case won't close. I will exchange it with nylon thread.

That's all, the radiator fits perfectly with the case closed and with my tall corsair vengeance ram modules.


Post Data:

I put the the stock wifi antenna that came with the motherboard where the hdd bracket is placed (under the power supply) and it works perfectly with the case closed, so the myth of the faraday box does not apply in this case (although some signal bars are lost for sure when you are so far from the router).
 
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And here are the results of the Cooljag Falcon II.

I compared the temps with my h75i liquid cooling kit inside my previous case, the silverstone sugo SG-13

And with the Dynatron T-318 with several fan configs.

The benchmarked cpu is an i7 5820K, and I used a Vray complex scene of my own (always the same) as prime 95 gets hotter than in any scenario that I've seen in my daily workflow.

1.jpg

Note: "Pull" means that the fan is oriented towards the outside >I , while "push" is to the inside <I


As you can see there is no noticeable difference between the Cooljag Falcon II and the Dynatron T-318 in vertical position with the side closed, although it is bigger, more expensive and so much complicated to mount in.

The only benefit came when the case was in horizontal position. I think that the pipes are designed to be used in that way, and the heated gas cannot flow through the fins very well when the case is vertical.

So I rather recommend going for the Dynatron t-318 with a Thermalright ty-100 fan in push configuration, you won't notice any major difference with the case closed in vetical position.

I also recommend going for the Ty-100 fan, as it has a top air flow of 44.5 CFM vs 29.6 CFM of the noctua NF-A9x14 PWM, (don't use the stock cooljag 120 x 20 mm fan; it was clearly outperformed by the ty-100).

I also noticed that at 4ghz the Falcon quickly overheated while the t-318 took more time to reach +100ºC, and it could hold sub 90ºC temps with a tower of two corsair fans put on it in push configuration.

As you may notice, bigger 120mm fans performed better in pull configuration, while the ty-100 worked better in push configuration. I repeated it several times an it didn't change the results.

>>> Pull for 120mm fans
>>> Push for sub 100mm fans


... I'm waiting for liquid metal Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut thermal paste to bench it with both heatsinks. I will post the results then.
 
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I'm only happy with my cooljag when I run without a side panel and dual fan push/pull setup with a 14mm noctua pushing outwards and 120mm mounted on the outside pulling. While playing Wildlands for 2 hours max temps on 7700k delid are 81C. Best results yet versus no side panel C7 and L9i. My last test is with the LP53. I'm hoping to settle on the LP53 with a closed case eventually. Numbers I'm seeing with the LP53 seem to be a bit better than the L9i and considering there will be no turbulence issues with the side panel, I think that'll be my final cooler.
 
EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 product page has been posted:

http://www.evga.com/products/Product.aspx?pn=11G-P4-6696-KR

They don't specify how thick the card is but it looks to be a standard two slot given this image:

11G-P4-6696-KR_XL_5.jpg


That combined with the ~270mm length makes me hopeful this will fit in our favorite case. Thoughts?


Thats great to see. 270mm should be more than fine for the Dan A4 regardless how the manufacturer measures it. This card just became my top choice for my dan A4. It's the only triple fan design which isn't 2.5 slot I've seen thus far
 
So here are the pics:

The case next to the bag:
https://preview.************/i0n4fa/image.jpg

The bag with the padding cut out:
https://preview.************/hSgx0a/image.jpg

The case inside the bag:
https://preview.************/kXxgRF/image.jpg

And the final touch, the perfect keyboard that fit perfectly inside the perfect bag that is used to hold the perfect A4 perfectly. Perfect!
https://preview.************/c9xbtv/image.jpg
Went to a LAN party and the case and bag is such an amazing combination.
Where I use to carry a backpack on my back, monitor and keyboard in one hand and case wrapped in DIY washing-line handle in the other hand, I now have everything but monitor on my shoulder and monitor in one hand.

Big thanks to DonDan!
 
The Strix 1080ti as well as the Msi both fat cards..

Hope the evga ftw3 saves the day
So is there absolutely no space for these thicker cards? I'll use what ever works, but I recall reading that video card length compatibility had some leeway which may or may not have already been updated on the website.
 
Not sure if theres any leeway but based on the Dan A4 spec page, its strictly 2 slot with a maximum width of 45mm including the backplate. I didnt measure my case specifically but I doubt you'd have more than a couple mm extra of top of the official spec. In any case I strongly doubt if any of these monster 1080ti cards would be able to work in this case
 
Have managed a good undervolt on the 7700k and trident z.

Running 7700k @ 4.5 with 1.140
Running 4266 trident z @ 1.3v down from 1.4

Hitting 95 percentile on charts and beating out 7700k users on full sized boards running 4.8-5ghz. Dan case seems fine for airflow once you undervolt.
 
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EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 product page has been posted:


That combined with the ~270mm length makes me hopeful this will fit in our favorite case. Thoughts?

I doubt it'll be only 270mm, there's a typo on their website because the SC2 measures 270mm in length...
 
Have managed a good undervolt on the 7700k and trident z.

Running 7700k @ 4.5 with 1.140
Running 4266 trident z @ 1.3v down from 1.4

Hitting 95 percentile on charts and beating out 7700k users on full sized boards running 4.8-5ghz. Dan case seems fine for airflow once you undervolt.

I am getting roughly the same, hitting between 1.138-1.152 vcore at load, with stock clocks and turbo on, with a -.080v offset. My RAM (Team Vulcan 3000 Mhz) needed to get bumped up to 1.35v, and I needed to disable c3/c6 states. Idle goes as low as .736v.

I am seeing decent (5-10c) decreases in my max load temperatures, even more in my averages. On the LP53 I can safely run the A9 fan at basically silent speeds (between 300 and 1300 rpm) for almost all tasks other than gaming. My benches are all the same as when I ran them at stock everything which is to be expected as all I am doing is lowering voltages. This is all with the IO panel off. The air coming out of there is hot! It partially melted a sticker that was on my CAT5 cable. (It is not fun to smell burning plastic during stress tests....)
 
I delid my i5-7600k today and got an improvement of about 11 °C (and removed the io panel). Realy amazing how cool my CPU is compared to the initial build.
96 °C (before I stopped Prime): Stock CPU + io shield
74 °C (50 °C delta): Undervolted by 0,075 (to 0,960) VCore, Multiplier 39
63 °C (38°C delta): Undervolted + Multiplier 39 + delid. In idle it has about 38 °C (about 700 rpm)
I put the last two results in the spreadsheet. There is room to improve the multiplier, but for now I don't need that much CPU power. Noctua fan is silent even under load (1450 rpm)!

About the SF450: I watched the fan for a bit. After (cold) booting the fan is passiv for about 15 to 20 minutes even while running 10 minutes Prime stresstest. After that the fan is spinning nonstop at low speed (idle) which is not load, but it has a little bit of a buzz. Luky I sit to the left of the case, on the opposite side of the PSU.

I might take some pictures at the weekend, but my case is not special. No cablemod, no additional leds (only gup and z270i).
 
LP53 arrived. :)

gddjuuz.jpg


  • One observation is that it had a rather interesting rubber pin mounting system for the original fan, will be interesting to see if it will be possible to re-use them in anyway - for the new fan I decide to go with.
  • There are rubber pins that go through mounting holes for the fan and they have a kind of hook that makes them get stuck once threaded through the fans mounting holes.
 
You get custom length cables and if so, what were the lengths per each specific cable? Nice video btw! :D

thanks!

those arethe stock cables from the motherboard for sata and from the corsair psu for power everything. just smart routing in the front of the case and below and behind the motherboard.
you can check the build thread for more pics and one of the gpu side :)
 
I delid my i5-7600k today and got an improvement of about 11 °C (and removed the io panel). Realy amazing how cool my CPU is compared to the initial build.
96 °C (before I stopped Prime): Stock CPU + io shield
74 °C (50 °C delta): Undervolted by 0,075 (to 0,960) VCore, Multiplier 39
63 °C (38°C delta): Undervolted + Multiplier 39 + delid. In idle it has about 38 °C (about 700 rpm)

Is lower delta better than higher delta?
I'm planning to undervolt as well but dont have time to test stability
 
Is lower delta better than higher delta?
I'm planning to undervolt as well but dont have time to test stability

I didn't use much time on testing, I just decreased the offset by 0,005 V and startet Prime for about 1 minute. It if worked, I decreased again, and so on. As soon as my system froze, I increaded offset by 0,005 V and run Prime for about 10 minutes (if that doesn't work, increase again by one step). After setting -0,08 V it worked fine the whole day while gaming. Maybe you shouldn't do something which might result in data loss when crashing, might be woth increasing the offset by 0,01 V from the first not stable value to be on the save side.
I wasn't able to cold boot by -0,08 V (after everything was stable) so I am not running -0,075 V.
Thats how I did it without using that much time, I hope it helps :)
 
Does anyone know what the EVGA elite member is all about? it appears you have to be "ELITE" to purchase one of their colored FTW3 cards. Its the only card that would fit my White build without voiding my warranty on a 1000CAD card by painting it.
 
Did somebody already post about these new SFX power supplies by FSP, available in 500W and 600W?

Interesting. Is this Corsair or Silverstone's OEM? FSP makes a lot of other brand's supplies.

I didn't use much time on testing, I just decreased the offset by 0,005 V and startet Prime for about 1 minute.

Just a heads up that it took Prime 26.6 about 4 or 5 minutes to crash when I was getting close to my final undervolt number.

Once you find your final number I would also let the computer idle overnight or with a browser window open particularly if your c states are still enabled to ensure the CPU's powersaving features are also stable.
 
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Interesting. Is this Corsair or Silverstone's OEM? FSP makes a lot of other brand's supplies.



Just a heads up that it took Prime 26.6 about 4 or 5 minutes to crash when I was getting close to my final undervolt number.

Once you find your final number I would also let the computer idle overnight or with a browser window open particularly if your c states are still enabled to ensure the CPU's powersaving features are also stable.
Aren't most of those disabled when using discrete graphics?
 
I'm sorry if this has already been answered somewhere, but I didn't have much luck searching.

Has anyone verified what custom cable lengths need to be for pairing an SF600 power supply and a Strix Z270I board in this case?
 
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