Jonsbo Unveils the V8 Cuboidal Mini-ITX Case

[Chrispy_]

I think the only full-size component you are talking about is the power supply. I can live with SFX, it's not in any way worse than ATX. The thing is that the Dan A4 allows a bit longer GPUs than the Silverstone and that's a good trade off for me. The Dan A4 doesn't allow the longest GPUs unfortunately, so it's not something I would actually buy. I'm more into the slightly larger factor builds myself like the Lian Li TU150. Unfortunately, I haven't found something like the Dan A4 yet that supports larger than 300mm GPUs like most of the bigger 3-Fan GPUs.

I don't have a Dan A4, but I have an MCase M1. SFX/ATX PSU is irrelevant to me really, I was just commenting that the Dan does make some compromises to reach that compact size - for anyone serious about SFF builds, it's a non-issue as you'll be buying a PSU and likely custom short cables at the same time as the case.

as for larger 3-fan GPUs, the bigger issue there is that those larger cards often exceed both the height and width (often 2.5 slots, not 2 slots wide). They're often tuned towards the performance end of the scale too and throw power-efficiency out of the pram to squeeze out those last couple of percentage points in the benchmarks. I'm not saying you shouldn't put one in a compact case, but the real problem you've got is that they're monstrously inefficient products - both in terms of performance-per-litre and also performance-per-Watt.

 

[PowerPC]

I don't have a Dan A4, but I have an MCase M1. SFX/ATX PSU is irrelevant to me really, I was just commenting that the Dan does make some compromises to reach that compact size - for anyone serious about SFF builds, it's a non-issue as you'll be buying a PSU and likely custom short cables at the same time as the case.

Yea, unfortunately I can't even get the MCase brand here in the EU besides importing it from the US.

as for larger 3-fan GPUs, the bigger issue there is that those larger cards often exceed both the height and width (often 2.5 slots, not 2 slots wide).

This is my biggest problem with these SFF cases under 10 liters. I think it could be done with a 3 slot, >300mm card support, if they really wanted to market towards that.

They're often tuned towards the performance end of the scale too and throw power-efficiency out of the pram to squeeze out those last couple of percentage points in the benchmarks. I'm not saying you shouldn't put one in a compact case, but the real problem you've got is that they're monstrously inefficient products - both in terms of performance-per-litre and also performance-per-Watt.

I can't attest to that from personal experience. A big, beefy card usually means a very potent cooler that also remains more silent. Bigger or more fans can spin slower and bigger fins can even cool it passively at idle without fans spinning these days. I have the RX 480 MSI Gaming X and it is an amazing large card that remains extremely silent and doesn't spin in idle at all. In contrast, I have tried the smaller, cheaper versions of the same card with those little, "janky" coolers and only had bad experiences with them. They can't cool the GPU sufficiently in idle and usually have to spin all the time and the ones I tried actually produced noticable noise with that in idle. NOT optimal when you're working and trying to concentrate. That's why I want to stick with bigger cards. Short of water cooling, they provide the best and most efficient cooling with the best silence profile I can imagine.

I think it would be amazing to have a slightly larger Dan A4 that supports just about every GPU, since the GPU is such an important part to get right and the biggest source of noise, if done wrong.

 

[Chrispy_]

I can't attest to that from personal experience. A big, beefy card usually means a very potent cooler that also remains more silent. Bigger or more fans can spin slower and bigger fins can even cool it passively at idle without fans spinning these days. I have the RX 480 MSI Gaming X and it is an amazing large card that remains extremely silent and doesn't spin in idle at all. In contrast, I have tried the smaller, cheaper versions of the same card with those little, "janky" coolers and only had bad experiences with them. They can't cool the GPU sufficiently in idle and usually have to spin all the time and the ones I tried actually produced noticable noise with that in idle. NOT optimal when you're working and trying to concentrate. That's why I want to stick with bigger cards. Short of water cooling, they provide the best and most efficient cooling with the best silence profile I can imagine.

Ah okay, you're basing it on 2016 experience. Understandable, since the RX480 uses around 160W at stock and some of the cheaper OEM RX480 cards were putting waaaaay-too-cheap coolers on it that would have struggled to do a great job with even 120W cards. Both Gigabyte and Powercolor were going as cheap as extruded aluminium blocks instead of heatpipe+finstack. IIRC Powercolor even made a single fan Red Dragon card with cheapo extrusion garbage. I bet that was hot, noisy, AND throttled!

That nonsense stopped when the 500-series came out and the 'stock' RX580 jumped to 185W and the later RX590 arrived with a 225W TDP.

Look at TPU reviews of the 5700XT or GamersNexus 5700XT roundup of half a dozen of the 'budget' cards at MSRP. They're all basically different levels of insane oversized cooling and perfect examples of how far you can push the Navi10 GPU outside of it's comfort zone in terms of clocks/voltages. Most of them were beaten by the Gigabyte model that has far more modest cooling and dimensions, but better voltage/clock tuning.

I can only hope that Big Navi and Ampere aren't pushed to within an inch of their limits, because I hate large, expensive, hot and noisy GPUs.

 

[PowerPC]

Look at TPU reviews of the 5700XT or GamersNexus 5700XT roundup of half a dozen of the 'budget' cards at MSRP. They're all basically different levels of insane oversized cooling and perfect examples of how far you can push the Navi10 GPU outside of it's comfort zone in terms of clocks/voltages. Most of them were beaten by the Gigabyte model that has far more modest cooling and dimensions, but better voltage/clock tuning.

I watched the GamersNexus review. The Gigabyte beat all those cards by a combination of cooling, performance and last but not least price / performance. But the pure cooling awards still went to the bigger cards like Red Devil and Saphire Nitro+. It makes sense to me because a bigger cooler usually means better cooling (sorry for the obvious point..). It's like with CPU-Air-Coolers, everyone who wants the coolest and most silent system gets the biggest one they can get. But I think it's actually more important to have the best cooler on the graphics card, since it outputs much more heat usually. I guess you could have the best of both worlds by buying the card with the best cooling solution and, if necessary, under-volt it?

 

[Chrispy_]

But I think it's actually more important to have the best cooler on the graphics card, since it outputs much more heat usually. I guess you could have the best of both worlds by buying the card with the best cooling solution and, if necessary, under-volt it?

You're not wrong there. Largest cooler and highest quality card is always better if it will fit, but you DO need to undo the aggressive overvolt and potentially the factory overclock to realise those gains in some cases.

There are a few recent threads I've been helping people out with here, downclocking and undervolting their Strix/Red Devil cards back to 'reference clocks and voltages' just to get the quieter, cooler card that their larger coolers are capable of. Hardware Unboxed has a nice roundup of the MSRP +/-$10 5700XT cards, all of which have vastly superior cooling to the reference blower but many of them are squandering that extra size and cooling area on poor tuning, higher voltages and higher clocks. The original TUF is included in that roundup as an "absolute failure, do not buy"

The thing with current AMD silicon at least is that the reference cards and voltages are already well past the sweet spot so these factory overclocked models with huge coolers, 2GHz clocks and extreme voltages are so aggressive that the extra power draw is a bigger step over the reference design than their enlarged, improved coolers. Take the 5700XT Strix for example: It has the best cooler but it also has a 50W higher power draw over the reference card for a meagre 7% core clock increase - which results in a real-world performance gain of around 3%. 3% more performance for 30% more power is criminally wasteful when these things are already the noise/power/cooling bottlenecks for most systems.

The Strix isn't the only culprit - the THICC II, Taichi and Nitro+ all draw far too much power for their puny overclocks that result in just 1-2fps more than the reference card. At least the Nitro+ has incredible cooling and can overcome the efficiency defecit with brute force - the the other two not so much.

I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record at this point, but without even trying to brag about it I can "fix" the unimpressive reference card with a simple tune-up. It's been a while since I looked now but I think the "daily driver" profile is 1666MHz at 875mv, resulting in a sub-120W power draw. Benchmarks tell me that I'm getting 92-93% the performance for 50-60% of the default power draw. That means that I've achieved a 60-70% performance/Watt improvement simply by giving up those last few percent that frankly don't make a huge difference. If my game was for some reason going to drop down to 40fps at stock settings, it's going to hit 37fps now with my underclocked, undervolted card. Neither of those scenarios are great, so I'd rather just drop the settings/resolution to accommodate much better framerates. In silence. At 110W. At MSRP. Without using an over-height, over-long, extra-wide 3-slot cooler.

 

[PowerPC]

I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record at this point, but without even trying to brag about it I can "fix" the unimpressive reference card with a simple tune-up. It's been a while since I looked now but I think the "daily driver" profile is 1666MHz at 875mv, resulting in a sub-120W power draw. Benchmarks tell me that I'm getting 92-93% the performance for 50-60% of the default power draw. That means that I've achieved a 60-70% performance/Watt improvement simply by giving up those last few percent that frankly don't make a huge difference. If my game was for some reason going to drop down to 40fps at stock settings, it's going to hit 37fps now with my underclocked, undervolted card. Neither of those scenarios are great, so I'd rather just drop the settings/resolution to accommodate much better framerates. In silence. At 110W. At MSRP. Without using an over-height, over-long, extra-wide 3-slot cooler.

That's pretty impressive. I guess I still just want to have the option of a bigger card in a case like the Dans A4, at least for potential future upgrades. If I'm already buying an expensive case like that. I guess cards aren't getting smaller either. I remember just a few years ago 3-fan configurations weren't even that common, now it's like almost every card. I think that card size will continue to grow in general (bigger chips and more features are always in the pipeline).

That's why I bought a slightly bigger case not long ago instead of the Dans, but I was really considering it for a long time. It just also still happens to be way easier to cool the system in a bigger case, so there's that advantage, too. Of course, if done right, I think a smaller case could also have all these advantages.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's pretty impressive. I guess I still just want to have the option of a bigger card in a case like the Dans A4, at least for potential future upgrades. If I'm already buying an expensive case like that. I guess cards aren't getting smaller either. I remember just a few years ago 3-fan configurations weren't even that common, now it's like almost every card. I think that card size will continue to grow in general (bigger chips and more features are always in the pipeline).

Yeah, it's nice to have an in-spec, dual-slot, standard-height card. My HTPC with the 5700XT reference card is a reasonably roomy Silverstone Grandia mATX design but it's certainly nice to have a blower to dump that heat straight out of the case instead of back into it for recirculation, and a 2.5 or 3-slot wide triple-fan cooler would just suffocate as the fans rubbed the side of the PSU. Overly-tall cards simply won't fit in the case at all, so despite being mATX instead of mITX, it still needs the GPU to meet ATX/PCIe dimension specs - something that VERY FEW high end graphics cards from OEMs actually do, anymore

 

[PowerPC]

Yeah, it's nice to have an in-spec, dual-slot, standard-height card. My HTPC with the 5700XT reference card is a reasonably roomy Silverstone Grandia mATX design but it's certainly nice to have a blower to dump that heat straight out of the case instead of back into it for recirculation, and a 2.5 or 3-slot wide triple-fan cooler would just suffocate as the fans rubbed the side of the PSU. Overly-tall cards simply won't fit in the case at all, so despite being mATX instead of mITX, it still needs the GPU to meet ATX/PCIe dimension specs - something that VERY FEW high end graphics cards from OEMs actually do, anymore

That's why I like the Lian Li TU150. I feel like it's the best compromise between size and cooling you can have these days. I would never compromise cooling to the point of not having much choice for a smaller footprint. But that case gives you all the choices, with 3-slot cards up to 320mm and big CPU-air-coolers up to 165mm. And the case couldn't really be physically made smaller anymore with those options, so it actually IS the perfect size, I guess. I don't really see any downsides to that case, except maybe it could have a tiny bit better built quality. But it's also on the cheaper side, so I can imagine them releasing something marginally more high quality in that size for a higher price at some point.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's why I like the Lian Li TU150. I feel like it's the best compromise between size and cooling you can have these days. I would never compromise cooling to the point of not having much choice for a smaller footprint. But that case gives you all the choices, with 3-slot cards up to 320mm and big CPU-air-coolers up to 165mm. And the case couldn't really be physically made smaller anymore with those options, so it actually IS the perfect size, I guess. I don't really see any downsides to that case, except maybe it could have a tiny bit better built quality. But it's also on the cheaper side, so I can imagine them releasing something marginally more high quality in that size for a higher price at some point.

Yeah, I can see the appeal of the TU150 and agree on a lot of points, but it's also about 25 litres in volume, which happens to be the same as equally good mATX options like the Fractal Focus G mini or Silverstone Precision PS15:

Fractal Design Black Focus G Mini Micro ATX PC Gaming Case

Buy from Scan - Fractal Design Focus G Mini, MicroATX Computer Chassis, MicroATX/Mini-ITX, with Window, 2x 120mm White LED Fans, USB 3.0

www.scan.co.uk

SilverStone PS15 Precision Mini Tower white

Buy from Scan - SilverStone SST-PS15W-G - Precision Mini Tower Micro ATX,Computer Case, Tempered Glass, White, 2xUSB3.0

www.scan.co.uk

At the same ~25L volume but actually a smaller footprint (slightly more height), they are even more flexibility than the TU150 in terms of airflow space for the GPU. There are more decent mATX motherboards than there are mITX motherboards on both Intel and AMD platforms, too. Most of the ITX boards are overpriced compromises IMO - I'd rather have two M.2 slots and proper VRM cooling for the CPU than shave the board down that small for a dGPU build - Lets face it, an ITX board with a 3-slot GPU is realistically as wide/tall as an mATX board anyway!

In saying that, I'm a sucker for brushed aluminium. That was the best thing about my old LianLi PC-A04

 

[PowerPC]

Yeah, I can see the appeal of the TU150 and agree on a lot of points, but it's also about 25 litres in volume, which happens to be the same as equally good mATX options like the Fractal Focus G mini or Silverstone Precision PS15:

Fractal Design Black Focus G Mini Micro ATX PC Gaming Case

Buy from Scan - Fractal Design Focus G Mini, MicroATX Computer Chassis, MicroATX/Mini-ITX, with Window, 2x 120mm White LED Fans, USB 3.0

www.scan.co.uk

SilverStone PS15 Precision Mini Tower white

Buy from Scan - SilverStone SST-PS15W-G - Precision Mini Tower Micro ATX,Computer Case, Tempered Glass, White, 2xUSB3.0

www.scan.co.uk

At the same ~25L volume but actually a smaller footprint (slightly more height), they are even more flexibility than the TU150 in terms of airflow space for the GPU. There are more decent mATX motherboards than there are mITX motherboards on both Intel and AMD platforms, too. Most of the ITX boards are overpriced compromises IMO - I'd rather have two M.2 slots and proper VRM cooling for the CPU than shave the board down that small for a dGPU build - Lets face it, an ITX board with a 3-slot GPU is realistically as wide/tall as an mATX board anyway!

In saying that, I'm a sucker for brushed aluminium. That was the best thing about my old LianLi PC-A04

The Fractal Design is actually around 36 liters in my calculation. The SilverStone, though, does seem to hit all the boxes for me and I'm pretty impressed that it even supports full ATX power supplies at 25 liters! I agree that it's also way more versatile in cooling.

There's also probably something to be said about the Jonsbo UMX3. It's also ~25 liters and it fits the same GPU length, 3-slot cards as the Lian Li TU150 and just a slightly smaller CPU-air-cooler, but also makes that up by taking up much less desk-space like the SilverStone. It looks amazing in my opinion in the version without the acrylic window (haven't seen the windowed version in person though). But it's probably the most direct competitor to the Lian Li in looks, features and the price is almost identical with less than a dollar difference in the EU.

But I agree, the SilverStone Precision PS15 is probably the clear winner in terms of pure function. Just that I'm a sucker for brushed aluminium as well. It's kind of hard not to go with the much better looking case sometimes.

I guess then, now I hope they make that SilverStone in brushed aluminium some day. Their new cases at least do seem to be going in that direction. So I'll have my fingers crossed.

 

[Chrispy_]

The Fractal Design is actually around 36 liters in my calculation.

Ah yeah, I derped - it's the Core series that are ~25L and they're simply not as nice (though I use them for the threadripper renderfarm in cabinets of 8 because they're tiny and mATX)

 

[PowerPC]

Ah yeah, I derped - it's the Core series that are ~25L and they're simply not as nice (though I use them for the threadripper renderfarm in cabinets of 8 because they're tiny and mATX)

View attachment 161865

Oh wow...

 

[tvamos]

For whoever cares, I got this case from caseking de on monday and want to give first impressions. Paid 153 euros with shipping .

It is really beautiful, so much that my wife says it all the time. Build quality is excellent, aluminum is thick and has nice finish, no sharp edges. Front fan is decently quiet, and sits about 1cm away from front panel. How much air does it push, don't know, cannot test it with case closed. but temps are overall similar to my previous case, inwin101. Gpu can easily pull air through mesh on the side, as well as psu on the opposite side.

There is a lot of room for gpu, and cpu air-cooler but there is not a lot of space to hide your cables. Took me two days to build, arrange and hide everything. Hopefully someday I can get 2TB m.2 and remove hdd cage and a lot of cables it holds right now.

 

[Andyr]

Looks incredible! Do you think it would take a gpu wider than 2 slots?

 

[micropage7]

actually it looks good if you can place it vertically all the cables from down and it would pretty slick

 

[tvamos]

Looks incredible! Do you think it would take a gpu wider than 2 slots?

Yes, biggest gpu I have at hand is asus 6950 directII (3-slot) and it could fit. Up to 6cm wide gpu would fit.

 

[Andyr]

Yes, biggest gpu I have at hand is asus 6950 directII (3-slot) and it could fit. Up to 6cm wide gpu would fit.

Thanks - sounds like it would probably take a 3080 in that case!

 

[tvamos]

Thanks - sounds like it would probably take a 3080 in that case!

They state support for up to 330mm cards on their website, and have a picture of what appears to be ZOTAC RTX 2080 Ti Extreme Plus OC installed.