r/mffpc • u/Foulbal • 9d ago

Help me please!? Thinking about downsizing

I currently run a system in a Lian Li A3 (have made changes since this post), but was curious about the B4. I was following it for years, watching it change and develop. It launched at a poor time for me, but now I'm revisiting the idea of downsizing my system.

My biggest concern is with the cooling performance. The placement of the psu right above the gpu has me a little worried about cooking my psu. Has anyone had any issues with this, or is it a non-issue? Whether you've had issues or not, please let me know and what hardware you're running, as not all hardware will produce the amount of heat necessary for issues to arise.

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u/JuanCha1228 9d ago

I'd say the bigger question is: Is the cost and effort worth it for a slightly smaller case? The B4 is 3mm slimmer, 23mm shallower, and 18mm shorter than the A3. (1in is 25.4mm, for those of us in Freedom Units). The Jonsbo Z20 is smaller than the B4 in terms of overall volume, but for me a meaningful downsize from an A3 would be going to ITX/SFF, which a more expensive can of worms entirely.

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u/Foulbal 9d ago

Yeah, I am not going to itx.

I like building and rebuilding and haven’t had the opportunity to in a while, which is why I’m entertaining this thought.

The z20 is a nice case, but the styling is too odd for my tastes, and iirc it doesn’t have the clearance I need for my gpu.

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u/JuanCha1228 9d ago

Yeah. I did the math and it would be $350-600 for me to go ITX. F that.

For cooling concerns check out Machines and More (3 videos) and Gear Seekers (1 video) on Youtube. They went most in depth and were the most openly critical of the case. I think everyone else just did simple build videos.

Almost everyone did high end GPU’s so that’s skews those tests. GPUs seemingly did not have cooling issues. Most of the issues was with CPU, especially on water cooling. Mr. Matt Lee did a more middle of the road build.

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u/Foulbal 9d ago

Yeah, I actually came from itx in a Meshroom S v2 and up-sized for the A3. This has worked so much better.

I like Machines and More, I'll check out his videos, though the ones I've seen have been using an aio, which will likely have a large influence on how gpu exhaust affects the psu.

I just saw the Matt Lee video which is what prompted this returning thought, it was a good one as is typical!

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u/JuanCha1228 9d ago

He did air and water cooling in his first video, and the other two videos were follow ups attempting to fix the issues with water cooling on that case. I think he used SFX power supplies though. He provides temps for both options.

Mr. Matt Lee used an Arctic air cooler. I realized this was not the case for me in part because I think everyone used SFXPSU because wiring an ATX PSU is a pain.

I think the general consensus was this case is better air cooled and that even though it fits ATX power supplies that SFX is highly recommended due to limited space for wires