SilverStone RV01 Raven Case Review

Exterior Impressions

As we said at the beginning of the review, you are either going to love or hate the Raven and this goes double for its unique looks as well. It really looks like someone had taken a NZXT case and force fed it steroids while chaining it to a Stairmaster for 6 months. In any case the Raven is all about making a statement and it dos accomplish this very well indeed. Of course, one could make a good case that with its side air intake vents and angular looks it was modeled after the original Dodge Viper; but one way or another this case is aggressive looking and is certainly crammed with bold styling. If this is not your cup of tea, you might as well stop reading this review as the Raven is not for you and we highly doubt it’s looks will ever grow on you. Like we said you’ll either instantly love the sharp edged looks of the Raven or you will loathe it.


As with many cases the top is what sets the overall styling of the case. If the top is flat, sleek and smooth with classical styling the chances are fairly good the rest of the case is going to follow suit and this case is no different. The top of the Raven is very angular and it certainly has a unique look and feel to it, but it is a bit too plastic looking for our tastes. Please don’t get us wrong; it doesn’t look cheap but even the best plastic has a different look and feel to it than metal.

One interesting thing about the top is unless you knew in advance about the idea behind this case you probably would never guess the connectors usually associated with the back of a case are located on the top. This was one concern we had when he first heard about this case as we had a mental image of a spaghetti tangle of wires all hanging off the top of an otherwise clean enclosure. Luckily, this is not how this case looks as SilverStone has taken the time to include a top cover for it.


This cover takes up about half of the top and does do a good job of making the case look aggressive albeit at the price of looking plasticky. Located at the rearmost portion of this area are two rather large circular spring loaded latches which are the lock and retaining mechanisms for this removable sheath. With a simple push and twist on both of them (one at a time) you can easily unlock and slide the cover back and then off. This should make installing your necessary wires and cables a breeze, while at the same time protecting them from an errant knock. To make sure you do not break these dial-like latches, English instructions have been molded in and around them.

In keeping with the overall design of the Raven, this area is certainly well ventilated and should have at worst a minor impact on the static pressure need to remove heat. We say at worst because we have our doubts it will have any noticeable impact on case temperatures due to its height clearance from top of the case to the inside top of this sheath.


The only major down side to this setup, besides its love it or hate it looks, is the height restrictions it places on any connectors you may use. All in all you only have at the most 79 mm of room between the top of the case to the inside of this plastic cover (this at the tallest point directly in the center of the top of the carry handle). Under the best circumstances this should be enough room for even your DVI connector, albeit it is a tight fit. However if you are still using an analog monitor (as a lot of old school “gamers” still are) you may be out of luck as a digital to analog converter (DVI to VGA) plug plus the normal analog monitor plug will result in a stack too tall for the cover to be re-seated.


Continuing our tour of the back of the Raven, we also see a nicely done metal handle which does triple duty as a hand hold, a cable router and support column for the aforementioned cover and its locking mechanisms. This may not seem like such a big deal but this multi purpose design is the epitome of good engineering; why use three parts when one will do a better, cleaner job? The only down side to the handle design is the lack of height it affords your cables.


As with many cases, directly “above” (or more accurately in front) of the multipurpose handle are the seven peripheral slot covers. In this instance SilverStone has made the wise decision and included their AeroSlot ventilated covers. These will certainly help the heat escape from the top of the case. After all, the Raven is all about the unique “stack effect” of letting heat rise up and out the case and having the PCI slots acting as mini air dams certainly would have been a bad idea. Also in keeping with this highly ventilated idea, directly to the side of the PCI AeroSlots is a large rectangular exhaust vent. This may be a passive setup, and while not unique to the Raven, does once again reduce the chances of hot spots inside the top of this case.


Moving on “up” you have your typical location for the I/O panel and 120mm exhaust fan. We will of course go over the fan in more detail but suffice to say this fan helps make a passive “stack effect” a more active one.

You may notice that unlike most cases there is no cut-out for the PSU, and this has been done on purpose. It is one thing to hang your motherboard on its side, but a completely different to expect people to hang their PSU from the top and have it held in place by only four small screws. As with many cases, the Raven uses a bottom mounted PSU location.