SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

Cooling Options

Tower air cooler, blah blah blah, up to 162mm blah blah, bit tight around the corners, blah blah, positive pressure, blah blah blah, good airflow up from the base, blah blah.  Right, on to water cooling, whoopee.

SilverStone Raven RV05 Review     SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

 

Although a 120mm rad based AIO can be placed in the roof of the case it’s more likely that you’re going to utilise the vast space in the base.  We’ve shown the RV05 below with a variety of configurations, the first of which is a nice simple slim 240 AIO.  In total there’s 105mm of space available between the base of the case and the edge of the motherboard.  Bear in mind though that as the motherboard is rotated you’re going to have numerous cables pugging in to its edge, not least of which is the 24pin ATX cable.  We think it’s worth leaving yourself a good 20mm or so in which to manoeuvre your cables., leaving 85mm of usable space.  Alternatively they can be routed round the front side of the motherboard.  Not tidy we know, but sometimes needs must.  Silverstone say there’s room for 12.3″ long graphics cards, but again it’s worth remembering that the more room you use up with rads the less you’ll have available for GPUs

SilverStone Raven RV05 Review     SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

 

For good measure we’ve dropped in the new RX360 V3.  At 56mm deep when combined with 25mm thick fans the RX leaves just enough room for us to still get our cables placed.  As you can see, we’ve had to leave the HDD rack to one side to fit the rad in, as it’s something of a tight fit.  It’s also possible to fit a thick 280mm rad down here, but owing to length restrictions, not a 420mm.  With either a 240 or 280mm rad it is possible to keep the HDD bay.  What Silverstone don’t mention, and perhaps they should is that it’s entirely feasible to fit the fans under the floor of the case.  Doing so increases the available interior space making an 80mm thick 280 or 360, or a 60mm thick in push pull a very viable option, the only caveat being that you’ll have to source some slightly longer screws to reach through to the brackets from underneath.

SilverStone Raven RV05 Review     SilverStone Raven RV05 Review

 

Unless you opt for standard 240mm or 280mm based AIOs which have, by comparison, quite thin rads, you’re going to need to box clever with your angled fittings and tubing, as there are many overhangs and tight corners that will need navigating.

SilverStone Raven RV05 Review     SilverStone Raven RV05 Review Â