DAN A4-SFX v4.1

[Zenskas]

Quick upgrade in my A4-SFX v4.1. Click the images to enlarge.

The stock feet are really short especially when they sink into a desk mat or softer surface. I believe this would impact the airflow for the two bottom case fans.





I wanted to allow better airflow underneath without impacting the overall looks, desk footprint or raising the case too noticeably.

So naturally all we need is to install feet spacers, and I had 8mm spacers 3D printed by a friend.



M3x12mm bolts used to screw the stock feet back in with the spacers between the feet and the case. I also got some 10mm bolts in case I wanted to downsize to 5mm spacers later.



The end result. Easy and clean modification which can be reversed at any time.






Not that I had thermal issues before but I was about to upgrade the GPU!
Coming from a Galax RTX 4060. A perfectly compact, cool and power efficient card but lackluster performance for 4K gaming.



To the very SFF friendly 4070 Super from the lovely folk at Inno3D.



Will it fit? Well yes, others on this forum have already tried with great success but let's see.



The flow through backplate wouldn't be doing much as I didn't really want it dumping heat into the PSU so didn't reverse the PSU intake. No matter, plenty of space for air to expel from the top and bottom like the rest of the heatsink. The flow through isn't a requirement as this isn't a founders edition card etc.



A perfect fit, Inno3D engineers must be A4-SFX owners. Didn't need to wrangle the card in just put it in from the PCI bracket side first then swing the back end in and it doesn't even scrape the case.



Miles of room to spare.



Cabling the 12VHPWR native cable was the hardest part. It wasn't long enough to route around the front cavity of the case like the 8 pin. I had to get creative and run it up and over the motherboard.



Down behind the 24 pin. It was tight but once in place it isn't pushing on anything. I removed the RAM to give me some finger space to install.



Then looped the excess in the space between the bottom two 92mm fans back up to the PSU.



In the end it looks reasonably neat and doesn't interfere with any airflow.



Case back together and you can appreciate the extra height on those feet! I don't think it sits too tall and looks fairly stock but if you want a lower profile spacer then try 5mm or 3mm.



I cleaned the fingerprints off after the photo of course...

I went ahead and tweaked the 4070 Super to produce less heat and noise.
Using MSI Afterburner I set the power limit to 75% which produces roughly 165W compared to the stock 220W.
Overclocked the memory +1000MHz and GPU +150MHz.

That was it! The GPU overclock and power limit kind of acts like an undervolt as the GPU raises clocks at the lower voltages and the power limiter stops it from ever going too high. It still volts the card a bit higher than a finely tuned undervolt would but it's a quick and safe way to get a stable result with way less power.
As I'm often CPU limited with the 5600X in ECO mode, this means basically near identical performance in games to stock. And is a big uplift over the 4060 not to mention the extra VRAM will come in handy as this is used for 4K couch gaming.

Temperatures are great so far, I haven't seen anything over 75c GPU, 68c memory and GPU hotspot keeps under 100c. GPU fans topping out at 2000rpm. I would like to try some PTM7950 on the GPU soon to see if the hotspot can be improved a little.

Cheers, and long live the A4!

 

[ZTylerDurden]

Cheers, and long live the A4!

Looks great! Nice work.

How you've installed the riser is what I've seen before by sending the cable behind the GPU instead of looping it underneath and behind the motherboard. Do you need any modding for that? Do you get to use a shorter cable or better compatibility with shorter cable brands? My riser (non-A4 included one) sticks up a bit at 300mm. I could cram it down but maybe I can simply route it differently (with a replacement length) like yours.

 

[Zenskas]

Looks great! Nice work.

How you've installed the riser is what I've seen before by sending the cable behind the GPU instead of looping it underneath and behind the motherboard. Do you need any modding for that? Do you get to use a shorter cable or better compatibility with shorter cable brands? My riser (non-A4 included one) sticks up a bit at 300mm. I could cram it down but maybe I can simply route it differently (with a replacement length) like yours.

Thankyou!

No drastic modding or tools required, just a few moments of time. I used the stock PCIe 4.0 riser cable. Out of the box I found the cable was way too close to the bottom 92x14mm fan and it would make a funny noise on the fan blades and made the fan more difficult to install in an already tight spot.

I took the riser out completely in order to start the bend a little bit closer to the PCIe slot PCB. I used a plastic spudger tool and wrapped the end of the cable around it to bend the cable a bit higher up, try not to put too much pressure onto the end of the cable where it connects to the PCB as you don't want to snap it off. Slow and steady. The factory bend then got straightened out.

Once it was bent right, I decided to run it up behind the GPU to maintain the new bend better and to stop the cable from ever sagging down into the fan. This would also make it much easier to remove or replace the riser later without having to take out the motherboard which is far more work than removing the GPU alone. Maybe you can slide the riser out from behind the mobo without taking it out but it wouldn't be as easy to reinstall and may interfere with boards that have rear mounted M.2 drives or backplates etc.
Also, I removed the plastic insulator sheet from the middle of the chassis. I didn't like how it looked and now the riser cable sort of backs the GPU up off the motherboard tray enough to not scratch anything. I wouldn't do this if your GPU does not have a full backplate though - you do not want to short out your PCB on any metal so leave the plastic sheet in if you don't have a GPU backplate.