DAN C4-SFX - old

[david.giessing]

I'm a bit confused as to what the final design will look like... just wondering if the GPU is going overlap/cover the motherboard (single or dual chamber design)?

I think Dan has decided to go with the same interior layout than the A4, so it's more of a dual chamber design.

 

[PeGys]

Seems I'll be changing my DAN-A4 v3 I got 2 weeks ago to this in approx. a year.
This thing is awesome !

 

[TheMoeBlob]

Really excited for the c4-sfx, you still thinking of going for the dual rad setup Dan?

 

[AlexTSG]

Really excited for the c4-sfx, you still thinking of going for the dual rad setup Dan?

Are you referring to dual 120mm or dual 240mm radiators?

I believe the plan at the moment is to support dual 120mm or a single 240mm in the C4, with another case supporting dual 240 or even 360mm radiators to be considered for a future project.

Hopefully we’ll see renders from Dan soon with the latest design.

 

[dondan]

Really excited for the c4-sfx, you still thinking of going for the dual rad setup Dan?

If you are talking about the dual 240mm radiator concept I show some month ago that will be cooled indirectly by 2x 120mm fans like the Corsair ONE I made the decision to put this on halt because many users are sceptical about this and don't see the need of having dual 240mm radiator in a 11.4L case. My personal thought is, that this concept is the most inovative and will give the best cooling performance/size ratio. I am thinking of making a prototype of it sometime this year as an concept to see how it will perform.

For now the case will "only" have direct cooled 2x 120mm radiator support or 1x 240mm radiator in 10.4L.

 

[TheMoeBlob]

If you are talking about the dual 240mm radiator concept I show some month ago that will be cooled indirectly by 2x 120mm fans like the Corsair ONE I made the decision to put this on halt because many users are sceptical about this and don't see the need of having dual 240mm radiator in a 11.4L case. My personal thought is, that this concept is the most inovative and will give the best cooling performance/size ratio. I am thinking of making a prototype of it sometime this year

Yeah that's the ticket, I'll be keeping an eye out for that prototype, it's a really interesting idea and I think it'll work really nicely. I can understand the skepticism from others though.

 

[dondan]

Yeah that's the ticket, I'll be keeping an eye out for that prototype, it's a really interesting idea and I think it'll work really nicely. I can understand the skepticism from others though.

1.) Many customers want a easy to build setup. So 9900k cooled by 240mm AIO and RTX 2080 air cooled. If you do this inside a C4 dual radiator you have to know what you do because there are three rules working with this case. If you don't follow it you will have bad temperatures. 1. cover all unused radiator space with fans or included brackets. 2. all fans has to push in the same direction. 3. don't start the case with removed side panels /window, because air pressure will not go through radiators.

2.) Many Customers don't see the need of cooling GPU with water and will get a bigger case without using the extra space.

2.) 240mm AIO cooling for GPU is hard. Prebuild cards are rare and expansice. Upgrading your air cooled card with 240mm AIO requires NZXT Kranken G12 and Asetek based 240mm AIO generates costs of ~ $100 and you have to remove the GPU heatsink (not trivial)

3.) Only a small amount of customers want to build a custom loop that whould be pefect in this case.

4.) Customers think that you will have a big performance drop on 2x 240 radiators indirect/semi passic cooled vs direct cooled.


On the other hand you will have the following advantages:

1.) Up to 480mm of radiatorspace in only 11.4L.

2.) If you use only 1x 240mm radiator a lot of free space for up to 4x 2.5" extra drives.

3.) If you use only 1x 240mm radiator you can install up to 4x intake/outake fans

4.) Very intersting possible custom builds

5.) A special case with a unique layout + cooling system.

 

[Killinger]

I think you are selling me on the dual 240 design. The more I think about the options for hard drive upgrades, getting both CPU and GPU under 240s, the fact that you could alwaus use one of the spaces for one of the 240mm aios for fans pointing in the direction of the main radiator, and the amount of cooling the VRMs and m.2 drives would benefit from a design like that could be useful. I dont want to presume to speak for everyone on this forum, but I’m willing to bet that if you could show some pictures or a video of that prototype of that setup actually working, we’d be much more into the idea. Its a cooling setup that I’ve never seen so I think I just want to see it in action before I can get behind it

 

[PeGys]

I think you are selling me on the dual 240 design. The more I think about the options for hard drive upgrades, getting both CPU and GPU under 240s, the fact that you could alwaus use one of the spaces for one of the 240mm aios for fans pointing in the direction of the main radiator, and the amount of cooling the VRMs and m.2 drives would benefit from a design like that could be useful. I dont want to presume to speak for everyone on this forum, but I’m willing to bet that if you could show some pictures or a video of that prototype of that setup actually working, we’d be much more into the idea. Its a cooling setup that I’ve never seen so I think I just want to see it in action before I can get behind it

As far as I remember the new corsair one systems use this cooling setup and it really works well to cool a 9900k and rtx 2080ti and they don't even use full blown 240 rads but some kind of size in between.

Jay can tell you all about it.

 

[DaveMan20]

@dondan Just weighing in on the dual 240 rad option even though I know this will not be the design you are going with.

I can't see how increasing the amount of radiator space without increasing the number of fans will result in better cooling. If you have 2 240 rads and only 2 fans you will get half the airflow across the rads than if you had one 240 rad and two fans. Each rad will work at half capacity compared to 1 full capacity rad.

I am glad you are going with the 1 240 option as this seems by far the most popular option for your community. I will definitely be a backer!

 

[dondan]

@DaveMan20: So if i understand you right you say: A single 240 rad with 2x 120mm fan @ 2000rpm will peform the same as 2x 240 rad with 2x 120mm fan @ 2000 rpm because every rad can use only 1000 rpm. From my knowledge radiators does not have a linea peformance curve:

Furthermore you should read the following articles:

https://www.ekwb.com/blog/radiators-part-2-performance/
https://www.ekwb.com/blog/radiators-part-3-surface-thickness/


This biggest advantage is radiator surface it is eaven better than radiator volume. In part 2 there is an interesting comparison. SE360 vs SE240. So in your theory the SE240 should have the same cooling performance with 2x 1650rpm (total 3300 rpm) vs SE360 with 3x 1100 rpm (total 3300 rpm). The difference is 50W/10k and this is only 360rad vs. 240 rad. So maybe for the C4 2x240 rad vs 1x240 rad the difference could be up to 100W/10k. Under best condition. I think a realistic value is 75W/10k

 

[schn1tt3r]

@PeGys yes Jay did explain it well, the problem is that many people that bought into this initial thread's idea don't want to water cool their GPU. I have a 1080 TI strix with very good air cooling capabilities, so people like me would much rather have the original design than convection cooling with an air cooled GPU inside causing turbulence and whatnot. Jay mentions the results when they tried using an air cooled GPU on that system at minute 2:55

EDIT: Not to mention the hassle of upgrading or replacing a video card and having to swap out the video cards. If only water cooling GPU's were as easy as plugging an AIO for the CPU haha.

 

[PeGys]

Guess there is only one solution... Dondan will have to make 2 cases lol

 

[Talyrius]

@PeGys yes Jay did explain it well, the problem is that many people that bought into this initial thread's idea don't want to water cool their GPU.

You wouldn't have to take advantage of that capability though. You could use the extra space for fans and/or drives.

 

[Kaleidoscope]

Longtime lurker here (just recently made an account)
Personally I think the 2x 240mm radiator configuration is my favourite. The x1 240mm sandwich has been done many times with the Ghost S1, Nouvolo Steck and others. This genuinely will be a breath of fresh air.

1.) Many customers want a easy to build setup. So 9900k cooled by 240mm AIO and RTX 2080 air cooled. If you do this inside a C4 dual radiator you have to know what you do because there are three rules working with this case. If you don't follow it you will have bad temperatures. 1. cover all unused radiator space with fans or included brackets. 2. all fans has to push in the same direction. 3. don't start the case with removed side panels /window, because air pressure will not go through radiators.

Personally I think everyone who gets into the SFF case game is an enthusiast. Building in SFF cases is painful and requires a lot of thought in regard to component choice. SFF cases themselves are expensive, compared to mass market ATX/eATX cases that are very popular.

So I'm sure any potentially builders will keep the limitations and rules of the case in mind and know what they are getting into.

2.) Many Customers don't see the need of cooling GPU with water and will get a bigger case without using the extra space.

The extra space will be useful for putting in HDDs(cheap storage), SSDs or fans. One can even potentially squeeze in an mATX board for HEDT CPUs.

2.) 240mm AIO cooling for GPU is hard. Prebuild cards are rare and expansice. Upgrading your air cooled card with 240mm AIO requires NZXT Kraken G12 and Asetek based 240mm AIO generates costs of ~ $100 and you have to remove the GPU heatsink (not trivial)


3.) Only a small amount of customers want to build a custom loop that whould be pefect in this case.

$100-$150 + IMHO is not a bad deal for silence and better clocks.

4.) Customers think that you will have a big performance drop on 2x 240 radiators indirect/semi passic cooled vs direct cooled.

Again Corsair seems to have figured it out. Why not give it a shot.


The only thing that's making me hesitate jumping into SFF is the compromises that have to be made much in terms of thermals and performance for compactness. I get the point is to make the build small as possible, but I feel the compromises are just too much.

There are pretty much no cases that offer effective > 240mm support. Even cases that have good GPU support (like the NCase M1) starve air cooled GPUs. Water cooling is also not an option since there are no good radiator mounting points.

Personally don't mind if the case is a little bit larger, if it has excellent thermals and component compatibility. But that's just me.

Again keep up the good work. Excited to see what comes up in the end.

 

[Nasp]

Wasn't the dual 120 radiator case the one that had the radiators exposed to the outside with no protection? Or am I confusing that one for another design?

 

[Rankless]

Wasn't the dual 120 radiator case the one that had the radiators exposed to the outside with no protection? Or am I confusing that one for another design?

Yes, you're confusing it with the vertical design. The dual 240mm design was effectively an up-scaled C4-sfx. One radiator on the top, one on the bottom, two 120mm fans on the front with a Lian-Li style side intake for them.

 

[Rankless]

Loque and others released similar designs before Dan, but his is the most space optimized. Similarly, I fear that people are too quick to jump on the A4 style sandwich layout when it is probable -- or at least entirely possible -- that the original single chamber design will maintain superior exhaust airflow.

Folks are very quick to support the increase in size from what would otherwise be perhaps the smallest possible single 240mm radiator ITX case design. Extra drives are nice, but ultimately if you buy a two radiator case to use just one radiator, why not buy a different case that is better suited to your needs? I suspect that people are overestimating the noise reductions over an air-cooled GPU and performance gains on GPU overclocks. I can see only one tangible upside to dual 240mm rad support. Support for what would otherwise be three slot cards.

 

[chinyang]

I personally prefer the original single chamber designs. Just wondering is there a possibility to add in a little bit of modularity to make it to be able to setup as single chamber or sandwich layout..

 

[DaveMan20]

Thanks @dondan for the explanation. That makes sense. It would definitely be an interesting case concept but personally I am super excited for the single 240 layout.