SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

Up Close:  Interior

Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a bit of an unconventional ride round the case interior.  The first thing we notice is that the interior enclosure of the chassis is actually tipped slightly forward.  It’s this angle  combined with the larger more muscular feet at the rear of the case that we feel gives it the impression of being crouched and about to pounce.  In practice, whether intended or not, it should see the majority of the hot air gathering towards the rear of the roof area which is a shame, as the main ventilation, and place for an extract fan is actually at the front.  If it weren’t for the removable plastic 5.25″ slim optical drive mount the entire front half of the case would be open to the rear of motherboard area, so there should be no problem accessing the mounts for CPU coolers etc, talking of which, the RV05 can take conventional tower coolers up to 162mm in height. 

     

 

Silverstone have placed a pair of their Excellent 180mm AP fans in the base of the case.  To say these are the only fans that come with the case might make it sound as we were ungrateful, still, we’d like to have seen a 120mm extract up in the roof.  The HDD bay is placed up against the rear corner in the place you’d normally find the PSU.  The bay is plastic and capable of holding 2×3.5″ drives.  Thankfully the bay is also easily removed by means of a handful of screws.  Now why would we want to do that?

    

 

With this being a rotated motherboard configuration, the PSU actually hangs vertically from the upper left corner of the case, just beside the PCI slot covers.   Over to the right we find the sadly vacant 120mm fan mount position.

     

 

Having turned the case around we can now look at the reverse of the motherboard area.  As there are so many different levels back here it’s not really possible to give a concise measurement of the amount of space available.  Be assured however that there is plenty to be had.  Silverstone also appear to have taken an esoteric approach to cable management, in that although  there are doubtless plenty of holes back here, they appear at first glance to be smattered randomly about the place, and none of them benefitting from rubber grommets.  We have a sneaking suspicion that wiring this lot up may be something of an experience.  Let’s hope it’s a pleasant one.  For those of you wondering where the slim line optical drive goes, look no further than the image below right.  If you’ve fitted a slim drive before you’ll already be familiar with the shape of the caddy/mounting bracket.  if you haven’t don’t be too put off as it’s an easy enough job to whip the bracket off, fit the drive and then re attach it.

       

 

There are also a pair of fittings for 2.5″ drives back here.  The brackets are raised so as to enable fitting of drives without having to remove the motherboard and spaced so as to still provide cable routing between them.

     

 

Having removed the 180mm fans we can also see that the base of the case is pre fitted for up to three 120mm and two 140mm fans.  Wonder what sort of room there is for rads down here?