DAN A4-SFX v4.1
- Thread starter dondan
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Just a little heads up: 3080 FE fits with 0 issues (room to spare I'd say).
Flipped the PSU, but don't know about temps yet. My thought with SFF tends to be "better not check temps so I won't get worried".
Looks so cool.
That moment as manufacturer - If you are in the same boat with all the other and you did not get a card ???
Just a little heads up: 3080 FE fits with 0 issues (room to spare I'd say).
Flipped the PSU, but don't know about temps yet. My thought with SFF tends to be "better not check temps so I won't get worried".
Would love to see some temps, both for the GPU itself, and for the PSU!! Do you have the 645LT for testing, or do we already know for sure that they're not compatible?
Please do some temp checking, I put a 3950x in mine with no intention of overclocking it and I'd be the same with a 3080. If it's throttling by a huge amount or running at 80+ degrees then I'd be wary but if it's in the 70's and keeping more or less near it's standard clock I'd totally go for it!
Keep in mind that the firmware on the FE has a temperature limit of 75 degrees, so we're more likely to see reduced frequency than increased temperatures. Essentially, the performance will be temperature-normalized. @DribbelDog this means it's important to also monitor the frequency to get an idea of the card's performance in the Dan A4 versus other cases! :-)
Ok probably not all you're hoping for, but I did SOME testing using the 3080 FE. All my testing was done using Minecraft RTX mind you; the game I really wanted to try ;-), but obviously not the most heavy hitter. I ran into some serious noise issues; not the acoustic performance I was hoping for or expecting. MUCH worse than my previous 1080. I immediately tried some undervolting hoping for some relief, using these exact settings. Stable for sure (in Minecraft lol), but the noise still ramped up. Looked at my temps and fan speed; around 69 degrees Celsius and 40% fan speed. GPU fan speed did not ramp up but the noise got much worse. Turns out to be quite obvious: the PSU was ramping up its fan unlike I've ever seen. I figured "there's a couple mm space for the hot air to get out, so let's turn that 3080 back around". And so I did. Much better. MUCH. GPU temps and fan speed APPEAR to be roughly the same, but while the PSU noise started after about 10 minutes when using the PSU as an exhaust, things are now still reasonably quiet after almost an hour. I can feel the cool air being drawn by the PSU, and the top of the case is much less hot to the touch than before. Still a bit more noise than the 1080 FE, but this was to be expected and overall seems reasonable to me. During this testing I did not revert the undervolting, I'm going to keep it this way and see if it's stable. Honestly, I'm happy with the performance now, maybe I'll even put the plastic sheet back in.
TLDR: I do not recommend flipping the PSU to serve as an exhaust myself. Thermal performance seems okay with the PSU drawing in fresh air, though testing was rather limited.
FYI: the PSU is a Corsair SF600, and in the case is a 8700K (stock clocks) as well being cooled using a Noctua NH-L9i.
Just to confirm with complete certainty, this is the current layout (resulting in much better acoustic performance and similar thermal performance compared to the PSU fan facing the 3080 FE during limited testing):
For the sake of completeness, the other side:
Also, I gently wedged a piece of plastic (one of those HDMI port covers just because the size was right) between the motherboard tray and the GPU, to give the GPU approximately 1mm extra breathing space behind the PSU. Not sure it makes a difference:
Here's a picture of the gap between the GPU and PSU. I measured it to be about 4mm (educated guess: between 4mm and 4.2mm):
That's a great write up and nice to see that the shorter fe gpu is giving you a bit of room for cable ribbons with the new adapter! I'll happily order a 20g FE if / when it comes out, based on those photos - thanks again!
Appreciate the writeup @DribbelDog . We have extremely similar setups so I was really curious to see how the FE would do in there.
Not catastrophic as some may have thought. Still think I'll stick to the 3070 but instead will try for the FE.
Not catastrophic as some may have thought. Still think I'll stick to the 3070 but instead will try for the FE.
Seems like EVGA with Noctua coolers might be the way to go then (to save on width and noise). The flow would be turbulent and thus noisy but I guess that with its three fans, heatsink and more traditional cooling design it would perform better. It might even run on much lower rpm.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
would it be possible to put the psu on the floor of the case to let the pull through fan displace the heat?
I've seen it done by a guy a with full custom loop in his Dan A4, but he had to make super slim custom PSU cables, and I think he lifted the GPU up as well IIRC.
3080 FE in the A4 looks nice and might work for games like Minecraft... however wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and you will need proper airflow on that second fan. So I guess flipping the PSU is the only genuine solution. In return this means that you will have to live with higher PSU fan speed noises...
Still think EVGA is the better option here. I wish Dan revises the A4 side panel so that it can fit EVGA 3080 without having to worry about the fans rubbing.
Also, would be nice to see a v4.2 (or simply v5) of the A4 in the future...
Still think EVGA is the better option here. I wish Dan revises the A4 side panel so that it can fit EVGA 3080 without having to worry about the fans rubbing.
Also, would be nice to see a v4.2 (or simply v5) of the A4 in the future...
