DAN Cases Unveils the DAN C4-SFX Case, Available from May 16

[btarunr]

The C4-SFX case was developed with focus on strong cooling and high-end hardware compatibility—while being as small as possible. This case uses a heavily optimized classic hardware layout. The list of features is long—280 mm radiator support, big air cooler up to 145 mm in height, indirect GPU cooling, ITX, deep ITX, DTX, 3.9 slot full length GPU, SFX & SFX-L Power Supply support, s.o. All this is packed in an elegant enclosure with 14L made by Lian Li. In terms of hardware support there are nearly no limits. This case is the perfect match for SFF (Small Form Factor) enthusiasts, developers who require a case with a smaller footprint due to limited desk space and gamers who want a high-end PC experience in their living room.

The case allows for tower heatsinks with 120 mm fan up to an height of 145 mm like the Noctua D12L or very big top blow heatsinks like the Noctua C14S. For these configurations it is possible to mount the power supply 90° rotated. With the radiator bracket it is possible to install 120, 140, 240 or 280 mm radiators with 25 mm thick fans for the best cooling results. You can install 3.9 slot GPUs with a length of up to 336 mm. Two 120 or 140 mm fan mount points at the top of the case allows for indirect GPU cooling if you remove the preinstalled GPU fans.



Two 2.5" HDDs or SSDs can be mounted at the front. The drives will be mounted with rubber spacers to reduce vibration and noise. The case does come with special air flow brackets and an RTX 40-series blow through air tunnel to force hot GPU air out of the case. This will result in much better CPU temps.

The all-aluminium body will be manufactured again by Lian Li in Taiwan per their highest quality standards. A commitment to quality lies at the core of our business philosophy.

Specifications:

• Case Size: 253 (H) x 166 (W) x 350.2 mm (D)
• Overall Dimensions: 273 (H) x 166 (W) x 350.2 mm (D) / including feet
• Case Volume: 14,7 L
• Case Weight: 3.7 Kg
• IO: USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-C (internal Key-A plug)
• Material: 1.5 mm aluminium & 1.2 mm steel
• Finish: Anodized black or silver exterior (glass beats blasted), matte black painted interior

Compatibility:

• Graphic cards:
  • 3.5 Slot up to 336 mm length
  • 3.9-Slot up to 334 mm length
• Watercooling: up to dual 240/280 radiator
• Heatsink: up to 145 mm in height
• Motherboard: Mini-ITX, DTX, Deep-ITX, short 3-slot mATX
• Power Supply: SFX, SFX-L
• Drives: 2 x 2.5" HDD/SSD
• Fans:
  • 2 x 120/140 mm fan top
  • 2 x 120/140 mm fan side
  • 1 x 80 or 1x 92 mm fan back side

On Tuesday the 16th May, at 4 PM CET, the C4-SFX v1 will be available for purchase. Please refer to www.dan-cases.com for the real time countdown.
The case will launch with a reference price of 205€ on Caseking.de

The case will be available through our resellers

• Caseking.de (EU Cusstomers)
• OverclockersUK (US/Canada/UK customers)
• ComputerOrbit (all countries)
• Dirac Japan partner shops (Japan customers)

RTX 4080/4090 cards that will fit:

• ASUS RTX 4080 Pro Art
• ASUS RTX 4080/4090 TUF OG
• Colorful RTX 4080/4090 BattleAx
• Gainward RTX 4080/4090 Phantom
• Gainward RTX 4080/4090 Phoenix
• Gainward RTX 4080 Panther
• Gigabyte RTX 4080 Windforce
• INNO3D RTX 4080/4090 iChill X3 / X3 OC
• KFA2/Galax RTX 4080/4090 Serious Gaming
• Manli RTX 4080
• MSI RTX 4080/4090 Ventus X3
• MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio
• NVIDIA 4080/4090 Founders Edition
• Palit RTX 4080 JetStream
• Palit RTX 4080/4090 GameRock
• Palit RTX 4080 GamingPro
• PNY RTX 4080/4090 Verto
• PNY RTX 4080/4090 XLR8

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Crackong]

Inverted NCASE m1 plus an air duct for Nvidia

 

[chodaboy19]

There are a couple of reviews up:

 

[KrazyT]

Optimized to the max !
Looks like a heater / radiator ...
With such hardware inside, could it heat the room a bit ?

 

[aktpu]

I would probably buy one, if there was a more interesting colour option available

 

[KrazyT]

I would probably buy one, if there was a more interesting colour option available

Why not try to paint it ?
It's seems easy to do
(i'm saying that, but i've never paint a case so ...)

 

[AusWolf]

Why is it so expensive? Damn!

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Looks like a retro radio.

 

[N/A]

a really cramped up hotbox, no that impressive, do that in 6 liters

 

[bonehead123]

A nice little heater-up-your-office-computin-boxen, yours for ONLY $222

p/A/s/S....

 

[Nostras]

a really cramped up hotbox, no that impressive, do that in 6 liters

A case this small and having mesh/openings everywhere is the exact opposite of a hotbox?

 

[aktpu]

Why not try to paint it ?

Doing a decent paintjob is a pain and required plenty of prep to look good. Painting aluminium is ever more pesky job, so anodization would be a better idea, but that's more expensive since I can't do that in garage

 

[Jism]

Optimized to the max !
Looks like a heater / radiator ...
With such hardware inside, could it heat the room a bit ?

Hour of gaming pumping 500 watts of heat or even more. Easy.

 

[Chrispy_]

Great product but increasingly niche due to the lack of decent mITX boards and high power consumption of CPUs that would be a suitable match for a 4090.

At this point, if you really want a tiny PC, it's a boatload easier to just accept that the flagship/halo CPUs and GPUs aren't aimed at mITX any more.

A Rzyen 7 7800X3D and compact, dual-slot 4070 is about the most I'd want to try and shoehorn into an mITX box. By the time you're adding triple-slot GPUs to an mITX board, there's enough wasted space under the GPU that you didn't need to compromise on mITX in the first place; There's almost enough room for a micro-ATX board - at least in this perpendicular GPU layout.

For GPU+Motherboard sandwich layout with 90-degree PCIe risers, you can just about squeeze an mITX board next to an SFX PSU in the length of a 4090 but it's going to be cramped, hot, and noisier than something like this mATX-sized DAN C4. It's one of those situations where people do it because they can and don't really care about the cost, noise, or outright performance that results from the reduced TDP of the CPU to fit the cooling limitations, or the reduced boost clocks of the GPU that's running hotter than it would in a more open case.

 

[dyonoctis]

Great product but increasingly niche due to the lack of decent mITX boards and high power consumption of CPUs that would be a suitable match for a 4090.

At this point, if you really want a tiny PC, it's a boatload easier to just accept that the flagship/halo CPUs and GPUs aren't aimed at mITX any more.

A Rzyen 7 7800X3D and compact, dual-slot 4070 is about the most I'd want to try and shoehorn into an mITX box. By the time you're adding triple-slot GPUs to an mITX board, there's enough wasted space under the GPU that you didn't need to compromise on mITX in the first place; There's almost enough room for a micro-ATX board - at least in this perpendicular GPU layout.

For GPU+Motherboard sandwich layout with 90-degree PCIe risers, you can just about squeeze an mITX board next to an SFX PSU in the length of a 4090 but it's going to be cramped, hot, and noisier than something like this mATX-sized DAN C4. It's one of those situations where people do it because they can and don't really care about the cost, noise, or outright performance that results from the reduced TDP of the CPU to fit the cooling limitations, or the reduced boost clocks of the GPU that's running hotter than it would in a more open case.

a really cramped up hotbox, no that impressive, do that in 6 liters

It was originally supposed to be smaller...until nvidia released the RTX 4000, that's the sole reason as to why that case is as big as it is. All new premium ITX case are now made with 3 slots, 2 slots are too limiting. Ncase and FormD are going to releases new cases around 14 liters who compatible with m-ATX. But I don't understand what you mean by lack of good ITX boards? VRM wise Buildzoid was pretty satisfied with the current offering, if you are going high-end you get 10 phases at the minimum, and the mid-range got 8 phases. Ryzen scale down gracefully, a 74w 7900 is only 8% slower than a 200w 7900x.

My Dan A4 H2O can still handle high end hardware (not the i9 without an undervolt/power limits ), and a big GPU is still going to perform better here than a small one. The sides and top panels are perforated, there's holes everywhere...but there's literally a single RTX 4090 SKU that will fit (the ventus). The FE are a no go because the flow through design could only work with a 4-slots design layout. (There's an offset system for the Two slot FE)

 

[CyberCT]

4mm - 6mm shy of fitting my Gigabyte 4090. Just needed a tad more length. Shame. Fail.

 

[AusWolf]

Great product but increasingly niche due to the lack of decent mITX boards and high power consumption of CPUs that would be a suitable match for a 4090.

At this point, if you really want a tiny PC, it's a boatload easier to just accept that the flagship/halo CPUs and GPUs aren't aimed at mITX any more.

A Rzyen 7 7800X3D and compact, dual-slot 4070 is about the most I'd want to try and shoehorn into an mITX box. By the time you're adding triple-slot GPUs to an mITX board, there's enough wasted space under the GPU that you didn't need to compromise on mITX in the first place; There's almost enough room for a micro-ATX board - at least in this perpendicular GPU layout.

For GPU+Motherboard sandwich layout with 90-degree PCIe risers, you can just about squeeze an mITX board next to an SFX PSU in the length of a 4090 but it's going to be cramped, hot, and noisier than something like this mATX-sized DAN C4. It's one of those situations where people do it because they can and don't really care about the cost, noise, or outright performance that results from the reduced TDP of the CPU to fit the cooling limitations, or the reduced boost clocks of the GPU that's running hotter than it would in a more open case.

I agree, although I wouldn't even go as far as a Ryzen 7. Small chiplets are tricky to cool and require plenty of airflow, which small cases are generally not good at.

 

[dyonoctis]

I agree, although I wouldn't even go as far as a Ryzen 7. Small chiplets are tricky to cool and require plenty of airflow, which small cases are generally not good at.

A lot of people in the SFFPC community are doing it wrong then

 

[Chrispy_]

I agree, although I wouldn't even go as far as a Ryzen 7. Small chiplets are tricky to cool and require plenty of airflow, which small cases are generally not good at.

Honestly, a Ryzen 7 is fine at 65W eco-mode. If you have the cooling headroom to push it to 95W then it's going to extract near peak performance as everything beyond that is severe diminishing returns.

The temperature isn't really an issue; Both Zen3 and Zen4 have silicon health agents which (outside of faulty Asus BIOSes of late) will keep the silicon at healthy long-term temperatures. They're going to run hot, yes, but still within limits and the actual amount of heat dumped into your tiny mITX case is never more than the PPT, regardless of the temperature.

Without trying to patronise, silicon temperature isn't related to how much heat is dumped into your case by the CPU, it's the power draw in Watts. A 15W CPU can run at 95C and a a 230W CPU can run at 60C and yet the hotter 15W chip will result in far, far lower case temperatures because it's only the Watts that are transferred out of the heatsink. If anything, a CPU operating at much higher temperatures is able to extract greater efficiency from the cooler because the larger temperature delta between the air and the heatsink results in a faster energy transfer from hot metal to cool air. In other words, more energy is extracted by the cooler for the same amount of fan RPM and noise.

 

[AusWolf]

Honestly, a Ryzen 7 is fine at 65W eco-mode. If you have the cooling headroom to push it to 95W then it's going to extract near peak performance as everything beyond that is severe diminishing returns.

The temperature isn't really an issue; Both Zen3 and Zen4 have silicon health agents which (outside of faulty Asus BIOSes of late) will keep the silicon at healthy long-term temperatures. They're going to run hot, yes, but still within limits and the actual amount of heat dumped into your tiny mITX case is never more than the PPT, regardless of the temperature.

Without trying to patronise, silicon temperature isn't related to how much heat is dumped into your case by the CPU, it's the power draw in Watts. A 15W CPU can run at 95C and a a 230W CPU can run at 60C and yet the hotter 15W chip will result in far, far lower case temperatures because it's only the Watts that are transferred out of the heatsink. If anything, a CPU operating at much higher temperatures is able to extract greater efficiency from the cooler because the larger temperature delta between the air and the heatsink results in a faster energy transfer from hot metal to cool air. In other words, more energy is extracted by the cooler for the same amount of fan RPM and noise.

I'm not worried about heat dumped into the case. My point is that with less surface area, you need a more capable cooler with more airflow to keep your silicon temperature low.

Other than that, I agree - configurable TDP is probably the greatest invention in modern CPU technology.

 

[Chrispy_]

VRM wise Buildzoid was pretty satisfied with the current offering, if you are going high-end you get 10 phases at the minimum, and the mid-range got 8 phases.

Buildzoid's VRM analysis of the various mITX boards was indeed reassuring.
The actual availability of those boards is atrocious though.

I'm not worried about heat dumped into the case. My point is that with less surface area, you need a more capable cooler with more airflow to keep your silicon temperature low.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

You shouldn't be worried about your silicon temperature because that's what the boost algorithm and silicon health agent are for; Unless you have an excess of cooling, they will get the maximum performance out of the available cooling while keeping the roasty-toasty silicon at a safe temperature for its long-term health.

You should be worried about the heat dumped into the case if you're running a tiny cramped mITX shoebox with restricted case airflow. That heat gets absorbed by every other component in your PC and is directly related to how noisy your case fans will need to be. mITX builds are most often vanity builds that sit right up on the desk next to the user, so noise levels are even more critical than in an ATX desktop where it's further from the user and more of the noise is bouncing around and being absorbed under the desk.

 

[AusWolf]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
You shouldn't be worried about your silicon temperature because that's what the boost algorithm and silicon health agent are for.
You should be worried about the heat dumped into the case if you're running a tiny cramped mITX shoebox with restricted case airflow.

That's the thing. The air dumped into your case should move, otherwise, it's just gonna be recycled by your CPU cooler, which affects silicon temperature as well. Sure, it won't kill itself, but throttling can be an issue.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's the thing. The air dumped into your case should move, otherwise, it's just gonna be recycled by your CPU cooler, which affects silicon temperature as well. Sure, it won't kill itself, but throttling can be an issue.

Yes and no. Define "throttling"

Even a shitty stock AMD wraith stealth can cool a 7950X at base clocks. It's not technically "throttling", you're just leaving a lot of performance on the table because your boost clocks will be garbage and that poor little cooler will be at 100% fan speed.

Getting back to the actual ITX form factor discussion, interested parties probably have a larger-than-average budget since nothing about mITX builds is cheap, and size is the main attraction so cooling is going to be more restricted as the case volume in litres shrinks. In that scenario, you will always be entirely cooling-limited. Your large budget means that the choice of CPU is probably irrelevant/immaterial but say, for example, your desired case size means that 100W of cooling is the absolute maximum you're prepared to tolerate in terms of noise/space constraints; It makes sense to run the silicon as hot as it's allowed to safely run, extracting the maximum possible performance from your limited cooler and accepting that your boost clocks will not be as high as they would be in a big open case with overkill cooling that can handle a 230W PPT CPU at under 95C.

With cooling-limited builds, you can chose fewer cores at higher boost clocks, or more cores at lower boost clocks. I'll admit that if you are building a compute powerhouse, more cores at lower clocks will ultimately get you higher performance, but in the context of gaming we do still need high clocks so a Ryzen 7 is probably as fast as you'd need to go before hitting the cooling bottleneck of a cramped, limited mITX cooler.

 

[AusWolf]

Yes and no. Define "throttling"

Even a shitty stock AMD wraith stealth can cool a 7950X at base clocks. It's not technically "throttling", you're just leaving a lot of performance on the table because your boost clocks will be garbage and that poor little cooler will be at 100% fan speed.

Getting back to the actual ITX form factor discussion, interested parties probably have a larger-than-average budget since nothing about mITX builds is cheap, and size is the main attraction so cooling is going to be more restricted as the case volume in litres shrinks. In that scenario, you will always be entirely cooling-limited. Your large budget means that the choice of CPU is probably irrelevant/immaterial but say, for example, your desired case size means that 100W of cooling is the absolute maximum you're prepared to tolerate in terms of noise/space constraints; It makes sense to run the silicon as hot as it's allowed to safely run, extracting the maximum possible performance from your limited cooler and accepting that your boost clocks will not be as high as they would be in a big open case with overkill cooling that can handle a 230W PPT CPU at under 95C.

With cooling-limited builds, you can chose fewer cores at higher boost clocks, or more cores at lower boost clocks. I'll admit that if you are building a compute powerhouse, more cores at lower clocks will ultimately get you higher performance, but in the context of gaming we do still need high clocks so a Ryzen 7 is probably as fast as you'd need to go before hitting the cooling bottleneck of a cramped, limited mITX cooler.

A fair point, I agree. Not to mention, CPUs can be really efficient at stock speeds, or with some power limit tuning.

 

[Chrispy_]

A fair point, I agree. Not to mention, CPUs can be really efficient at stock speeds, or with some power limit tuning.

+1 for tuning.
Each silicon sample is different but if you can find the PPT and EDC settings that give you the best performance/Watt you're already making more of a difference than your choice of case or cooling.