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!
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!
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