SilverStone RV01 Raven Case Review

If you needed a single reason as for why the SilverStone RV01 Raven is the most unique case out there, here it is.  The motherboard tray is turned 90-degrees from the traditional position. This setup was engineered to support the natural convection attributed to heat rising. This has many names, in architecture they call this a stacked ventilator however SilverStone calls it Stacked Effect Cooling.  Basically the natural movement of heated air will naturally pull cooler air in from the bottom and in some cases will not require any additional fans.

Looking at this setup also will show you just how much space you have around the motherboard for extra large graphic cards. The depth of the Raven also allows for very tall heatsinks without too much trouble. The only think to keep notice of is if the heatsink extends over the top of the motherboard as this is a very tight spot in the Raven.

The SilverStone Raven also has a large black bar that run across the mid-section of the case over the motherboard area. This bar has finger on it that click down and hold large expansion cards in place.  This bar is easily removed with just two thumbscrews to make installing and removing hardware easier.

The Hard Drive area is made up of six cages that all have rubber grommets on the side to hold the drives in place and reduce noise. The closest hard drive bay has a very special feature in the form of hot swap support  This feature has been reserved for the server side of computing but SilverStone has brought it to the regular customer.

Here we are looking at the back of the hard driver area. This area is really a mess, and is about the only major downside to the RV01.  The drive tray is located at the bottom of the case and has the drives sitting vertical and stacked away from the motherboard.  This is great for packing a bunch of drives into a small space however running cables here has proved to be very difficult.  First we had issues routing the cables as they would get turned upside down and backwards.  Next the Hot Swap connector is rather large and blocks the area where you would normally route cables.  Finally getting power to the drives has also proved to be difficult task since there is a huge plastic shroud in the way forcing you to take a longer route.  Combine that with tight clearances that stress the balance between closing the door and breaking your SATA connections and it forces you to stress over the simplest of things

Cable routing isn’t impossible in the RV01 Raven but it is a little more difficult than we would have liked.

All in not lost however Silverstone did include several cable supports behind the motherboard tray to help clean up clutter.  The hooks covered in heatshrink material to keep from damaging the cables when they are slid into place.

Here is the bottom area of the SilverStone Raven. This area is made for the PSU, and serves as the cool air intake for the case. The Raven will not have any problems with larger power supplies and while cable routing does appear to be a little messy is shows how much room you actually have here. The compartment area between the PSU and motherboard holds 2 x 180mm fans with a hole in the middle for cable routing.

From a modding perspective the area between the PSU and motherboard seems perfect for watercooling.  A dual fan radiator could fit where the 180mm fans are while pump and res would be situated below next to the power supply.