Silverstone Raven RV03 Case Review Comment Thread

[SKYMTL]

When they were introduced, the RV01 and RV02 far surpassed the size of many other ATX cases on the market and the budgets of most buyers. However, Silverstone's engineers went back to the drawing board and have reformulated their award winning Raven formula for a much smaller form factor and a price point of about $160. Called the RV03, this next generation in the Raven series may just be what some have been waiting for.

Please join with us in welcoming our new Video Reviewer Dimitry to the Hardware Canucks family. Expect a ton of content from him in the coming months!

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[chrisk]

Nice job Dimitry!

Surprised this case looks so clean with all the components installed.

[Bohrman]

Good job Dimitry! I await more

Curiously your name says Russian to me but your accent sounds francophone.... deeply confused haha, maybe its just the crappy mac speakers

Despite the champagne colour and the aggressive look, i kinda like this case... stuck between corsair's 500R and this now

[Keltron 3030]

Good review man! found out alot of stuff i didn't previously know about this case.

Style really needs to be looked at; those off-white stripes look HORRIBLE!!! I preferred the styling of the first one personally.

look forward to more reviews from ya dimitry, and great job again!

[Caldezar]

Good job Dimitry! Or perhaps, 'crazy Russian'?

Regardless of whether you have an alter ego or not... good review!

[Footman]

This case stinks, I just gave one away.

In my opinion of course.

First of all, it looks great and in theory with the motherboard rotated should provide better airflow. Also finished build was as neat as my HAF-X build.

However drive cage is a POS pain in the ass to work with, the alternative mounts on the back side of the case creat hotspots for the mechanical HDD's. The drive cage area has poor air flow even if an optional 120mm fan is attached.

Finally the biggest issue is that certain heatpipe cooler DO NOT WORK when placed in a vertical position, for example my pair of reference 560Ti's which hit 68-73C in the HAF-X exceeded their thermal limits in the raven 3 and shut down the PC after less than 10 minutes gaming. Beware....

Case looks nice and neat. I have since re-purposed the case and given it to the father in law. Works fine with solid heatsinks and single hard drive. I have a HD 5670 with artic cooling hsf (no heatpipes and reference intel cooler (no heat pipes)......

This case is also loud when the 180mm fans are set to full speed, louder than my HAF-X.

Just giving you heads up.

I should have learnt my lesson from the Raven RV02 I had, but this was watercooled so did not have the heat problems associated with the heatpipes, however excessive heat built up around the top IO plate and ultimately caused one motherboard to die.

I really want to like the design, but it just has not worked well for me.

[JMCD]

I really like the look of the internal PSU there. However, this case has a smaller look to it because of the two bottom fans. The side fans on a raven case defeat the purpose IMO. My RV01 keeps everything cool and is silent as well.

[martin_metal_88]

Case look pretty good with lot's of nice feature.

Welcome aboard Dimitry, nice review. I like that you keep the same way of doign that FiXT was using ;)

[lKashl]

Nice accent, good review. Was tempted to crack a soviet russia joke in good spirit, but I'll pretend to be mature :D

Originally Posted by Bohrman

Despite the champagne colour and the aggressive look, i kinda like this case... stuck between corsair's 500R and this now

Arrrgh how could you prefer this case over the Raven 2, although it is a fair bit cheaper i guess... but yeah you can't go wrong with Silverstone, their cases are pretty good quality, although my friend had a problem with the penetrator fans on his RV02-E, but then the problem should hopefully be resolved on this case :)

[clshades]

Nice job Dimitry! One question about the video card installation and the bottom fans. Do you feel the fan blades could or might interfere with the wiring for the vid card? With a 240 rad it would be even closer!