Wednesday, February 9th 2022
Lian Li Launches the A4-H2O, a DAN Cases Collaboration
LIAN LI Industrial Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of chassis and PC accessories, announces a new small form factor case made in collaboration with DAN Cases, the A4-H2O. The 11-liter compact case can support a 240 AIO and a triple slot GPU up to 322 mm long. With a minimalistic design featuring anodized and sandblasted aluminium panels, the A4-H20 is available in black and silver and is available with a PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 riser cable.
Based on the design of the A4-SFX, the A4-H2O keeps the same clean aesthetic and minimalistic concept but increases GPU size compatibility and AIO water cooling support. At only 11 liters, the A4-H2O truly encompasses the small form factor spirit with a clever new design by Daniel Hasen from DAN Cases, while being produced through the experienced manufacturing hands of LIAN LI.
If you want to know more about this case, check out our in-depth review of the Lian Li A4-H2O
All-around Removable aluminium Panels
The steel frame of the A4-H20 is flanked with anodized and sandblasted aluminium panels, perforated at the top and side to provide direct airflow to all hardware. All the aluminium side panels are secured to the case with snap pins, making their removal quick and effortless. When removed, the front panel gives way to a wide opening to simplify the installation of large GPUs. At the bottom, a perforated aluminium panel can be removed to mount the SSD out of the case and provides access to the PSU for easier cable management
Compact and Powerful
The A4-H2O achieves its small footprint by organizing the hardware layout in a sandwich layout. The Mini-ITX motherboard tray and removable SFX or SFX-L PSU mounting bracket are located on the left side of the case, the right side offers enough room to vertically mount up to a triple slot and 322 mm long GPU. At the top, a removable bracket can host up to 55 mm thick radiator and fans of a 240 AIO with CPU block up to 55 mm in height. A 1x 2.5" SSD mounting area featuring rubber grommets is located at the bottom of the case.
The A4-H20 is available for pre-order starting February 9th, 2022.
A4-H2O BLACK/SILVER Global MSRP
Based on the design of the A4-SFX, the A4-H2O keeps the same clean aesthetic and minimalistic concept but increases GPU size compatibility and AIO water cooling support. At only 11 liters, the A4-H2O truly encompasses the small form factor spirit with a clever new design by Daniel Hasen from DAN Cases, while being produced through the experienced manufacturing hands of LIAN LI.
If you want to know more about this case, check out our in-depth review of the Lian Li A4-H2O
The steel frame of the A4-H20 is flanked with anodized and sandblasted aluminium panels, perforated at the top and side to provide direct airflow to all hardware. All the aluminium side panels are secured to the case with snap pins, making their removal quick and effortless. When removed, the front panel gives way to a wide opening to simplify the installation of large GPUs. At the bottom, a perforated aluminium panel can be removed to mount the SSD out of the case and provides access to the PSU for easier cable management
Compact and Powerful
The A4-H2O achieves its small footprint by organizing the hardware layout in a sandwich layout. The Mini-ITX motherboard tray and removable SFX or SFX-L PSU mounting bracket are located on the left side of the case, the right side offers enough room to vertically mount up to a triple slot and 322 mm long GPU. At the top, a removable bracket can host up to 55 mm thick radiator and fans of a 240 AIO with CPU block up to 55 mm in height. A 1x 2.5" SSD mounting area featuring rubber grommets is located at the bottom of the case.
The A4-H20 is available for pre-order starting February 9th, 2022.
A4-H2O BLACK/SILVER Global MSRP
- PCIe 3.0 $119.99
- PCIe 4.0 $154.99
20 Comments on Lian Li Launches the A4-H2O, a DAN Cases Collaboration
Triple-slot is more common, full-length is more common - yet both the Dan A4 and Ncase M1 aren't really suitable for higher-end Ampere/RDNA2 models unless you find a very specific GPU or waterblock the card.
www.techpowerup.com/review/lian-li-x-dan-a4-h2o/
Realistically, every major OEM makes a 3060Ti, 3070, 3080, and 3090 that won't fit in an M1, mostly because of the depth of the card rather than the length of the card. The A4-H20 can handle deep cards because it's using a riser cable, so that's at least an option for people when the M1 won't fit. 13" triple-slot cards that protrude 2" above the expansion slot cover are ridiculously common and popular, which is irritating as most of that extra height is typically just decorative shroud for the sake of making the card physically bigger and not actually extra cooling surface.
Let's face it, in the current market you have to choose the case to fit the GPU you can get hold of, not choose the GPU to fit the case....
The Impact isn't all that amazing of a board either, at least at ambient.
Like I wrote, Impact was the _only_ option for me due to the USB situation. But saying that risers don't work if slot isn't at the edge board is not based on reality. You do need different length with DTX (compared to ITX) and with manufacturers shipping really specific length risers with cases is a problem (for me)
What's up with the USB situation? You have 7 x 10Gbps devices that can't go on a hub? There's two or three cases on the SFF master list that look to be sandwich + DTX support
As for DTX boards, "shipping really specific length risers" is how product design works: you include parts that fit your needs. If certain niche scenarios differ significantly - such as a niche motherboard form factor necessitating significantly longer risers - accounting for that in a standard design is wasteful and makes no sense. The Meshlicious handles this well: it has room for DTX, but you need to BYO riser cable, as the included one is too short for that scenario. And for most sandwich layouts, like this one, DTX support would necessitate significantly increasing the size of the case to make room for those extra 33mm of PCB, which makes it an obvious no-go. It's a shame for people with those boards, but it's also an inevitable consequence of uncommon in-between form factors.
If you need two non-GPU expansion slots in a machine then the A4-H2O isn't the case for you anyway as it's designed specifically for dGPUs in the first place.
Impact is the manifestation of "sounds great, doesn't work". Both B550 ITX boards I've used OC better, on CPU and mem, at half the price. Memory latency performance is all over the place like no other. The Strix/Impact VRM is supposed to be the best, but not actually because the "heatsink" is so sad. The 5 fan headers are great but two are on the SO-DIMM. The SO-DIMM is good for SSD cooling but only with active airflow, and flops around (which isnt a problem for DIMM.2 due to orientation). SO-DIMM is well-known for causing severe bowing on SSDs. SO-DIMM and fan headers are a pest for loop planning if you want aesthetics. etc etc
Perhaps an improved version for AM5, but I think Asus realized that DTX doesn't have much of a future when they can just stack stuff a mile high a la Z690 Strix