Let's face it, in the current market you have to choose the case to fit the GPU you can get hold of, not choose the GPU to fit the case.... For some perspective, this case is 244mm tall, 140mm wide, and 326mm deep. Comparatively, it is about two-thirds the height of a PlayStation 5. Yet it can fit all that juicy hardware, and more that I have yet to mention! Sandwich Layout There is ample ventilation throughout the Lian Li x DAN Case A4-H2O thanks to the fine mesh featured on the side and top panels. Promoting outstanding natural airflow, this will work perfectly with the AiO cooler to keep your gaming PC at optimum temperature. Choices

Being so small with a structured layout, ease of access is a must. Lian Li and DAN Cases have you covered. Every panel is easily removed, including the bottom where you can find a 2.5” SSD mount. Cutaways in the steel frame make installing hardware incredibly simple, and even the dividers come out. There’ll be no squeezing hands into tight spaces during this build! Plus, being able to strip down to the bare frame makes cable management a breeze, too. Available Models Impact is the manifestation of "sounds great, doesn't work". Both B550 ITX boards I've used OC better, on CPU and mem, at half the price. Memory latency performance is all over the place like no other. The Strix/Impact VRM is supposed to be the best, but not actually because the "heatsink" is so sad. The 5 fan headers are great but two are on the SO-DIMM. The SO-DIMM is good for SSD cooling but only with active airflow, and flops around (which isnt a problem for DIMM.2 due to orientation). SO-DIMM is well-known for causing severe bowing on SSDs. SO-DIMM and fan headers are a pest for loop planning if you want aesthetics. etc etc Of course, as in all things hardware cooling, there is no free benefit: Corsair’s fans are a bit noisy at max RPM, and even more noise piles into the mix as we add another one. ValantarThere's the Asus Crosshair VIII Impact (C8I for short) that uses that extra space for ... uh, some extra audio caps and some other stuff? It's not really clear what it uses the space for given that its featureset is 99% the same as the ITX X570 Strix, but it's supposedly better for LN2 OCing. It does have a couple more USB ports though, including one really weird 2.0-only USB-C (which seems to be intended for audio devices?).I think you might be thinking of the B550 Strix with the weird daughterboard USB-C. Now for the part that really blew me away was the temps. This shouldn't be surprising because the NZXT H210 is notorious for being an oven, but somehow I was expecting such a small case like this one to run hot as well. GPU temps dropped by more than 10 degrees across the board. Full load previously was 84C but has been reduced to 72C now. For my normal usage (60-75%) the GPU stays around 64C. Compared to the H210, the noise level is much quieter and the GPU is no longer screaming for its life. Another thing I like is how the GPU is on the right side of the case. Most other sandwich layouts I've seen have it on the left, but since I put my PC on the right of my desk this means the loudest part will be facing away from me.GungarThe Ncase M1 can fit any GPU except the stupidly long ones, you can also fit a 3 slot card no problem.The NCase M1 certainly fits some pretty large GPUs these days but the triple-slotters are suffocated by the extremely fine mesh on the bottom and the actual width of the case can interfere with both some of the sillier shrouds and many of the PCIe power connectors. Sure, there are workarounds for both problems by using dremels to the mesh on the bottom or U-turn PCIe adapters but the main issue is that the M1 was conceived when a 12", dual-slot card that protruding 1" above the expansion slot cover was considered insanely large. Overall, a great experience as a first time builder in a case this small. Lian Li has proven to be extremely high quality especially for this price point, and I like having the option to go liquid cooling later down the line next time I upgrade my PC again. I'm glad to be a member of the SFF PC community now with this case.

To sum things up, the Lian Li x DAN A4-H2O is a compact, simple SFF chassis that will work well with run-of the mill AIOs. It doesn't offer the flexibility we have recently seen from other SFF units, but manages to drive home the understated and functional minimalist focus quite nicely.

MORE POSTS BY Emily Haylock

This case is absolutely amazing, punching well above its weight class. Let's start off with what I have inside mine -- an i7 12700K and am RTX 3090 TUF, powered by a Cooler Master V850 SFX PSU. Man, does this case make it happen.

Realistically, every major OEM makes a 3060Ti, 3070, 3080, and 3090 that won't fit in an M1, mostly because of the depth of the card rather than the length of the card. The A4-H20 can handle deep cards because it's using a riser cable, so that's at least an option for people when the M1 won't fit. 13" triple-slot cards that protrude 2" above the expansion slot cover are ridiculously common and popular, which is irritating as most of that extra height is typically just decorative shroud for the sake of making the card physically bigger and not actually extra cooling surface.

Finally, where an aircooled solution also cools down the VRM/m2, this will not be the case with an AIO. The larger radiator worked so well that we wouldn’t mind using the Lian Li A4-H2O with an even more power-hungry processor: Something like the Core i7-12700K perhaps? Motherboard tray is slightly misaligned with rear opening no matter what I did. Not a big deal, but it won't be quite as clean looking as it should be.

All of the above make me wonder if and how an AIO is actually better than a decent aircooled solution like in the A4-SFX...Beware the CPU will likely run a bit hot since the top AIO is the only exhaust vent, and there isn't really room for any additional fans (with great effort I was able to squeeze a slim 80mm fan in the bottom but that was about it).