Hardware First Look: SilverStone Raven RV01

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2009/01/27/silverstone-raven-rv01-preview/1

First seen at Computex 2008, the new SilverStone Raven RV01 has arrived in the bit-tech labs. With its mobo tray rotated 90 degrees, the Raven points your graphics cards upwards and uses the laws of thermodynamics to keep them cool. We take a first look at what might be the future of case design.

 

Finally someone dared to speak up against that thing.

It is made of the same materials as a 20£ case.

It is ugly (ok I amdit, that depends on presonal preference).

It has little to no cable managment.

A molex connector for a HDD? what did they smoke? I bet less than 1% of those who buy a 170£ case have IDE Hdd's.

Hotswap for one HDD? lol

 

While it does have its faults, I would not be surprised at all to see this 'vertical' Mobo design adapted for more cases. I can see it being a big hit with smaller cases that are placed in tiny areas so that the heat can escape up top (duh) rather than out back, toward a wall.

 

that's disappointing. A "vertical" case should never ever have any of these problems. Do the designers not sit down and ask themselves:

1) who is going to buy this case?
2) what do they want to see?
3) what kind of system will they install?
4) what are our competitors doing?

To be honost i was pretty excited about this case, as the vertical positioning really makes sense to me. I would want to see cable management taken seriously inside and outside, space for 6 or 8 3,5" HDDs, a bay for 2,5" HDDs (why does no case have this yet?), less wasted space on 5,25" bays, and a good build quality, be it alu or steel.

Silverstone people, if you read this: do those things first and THEN let the boys at the design office play with their complicated shapes. Please do not compromise on build quality for design. Clearly the plastic was chosen here to accommodate those shapes.

 

I would rather have Jade Goody sitting on my desk than that ugly POS.

 

was planning on trying out the vertical aligment myself, but with connectors downwards and modified heatsinks. i'd like to see if it really makes any difference. nice of bit tech to try out for me:d

 

not a horrible looking case design IMO. terrible cable management design. they should have the cables from the I/O port of the motherboard run down the back of the case inside another panel as well as having a small part that opens on the top to use the extra USB ports and such.

Window could be bigger to show off more.

Make the case out of aluminum!

Either hotswap on all hdd bays or none at all.

I still dont get the deal with make every single thing in a case tool-less. Its ugly!


cool idea for vertical mobo though!

 

What, no rating? No "conclusion"?

 

It's a "First Look" - i.e. Preview. We haven't had chance to install our standardised test equipment in the case yet, so we don't know how it performs comparatively against the competition.

 

DO NOT WANT

 

Sinfully ugly, hugely overpriced (to echo the article - £170 for steel and plastic - WTF?) and massively impractical. FAIL.

 

would consider buying the case to turn it into a big modding project, fixing everything that's wrong with it. ie. rip out the mobo tray and replace it with one from another case that has better routing etc. i quite like the "stealth bomber" inspired exterior, and the 90 degree rotation of the mobo tray is intriguing. might also make it inverted-atx so that the intake on the graphics card is facing the front rather than the rear (going from the pictures not much air is fed from the rear of the case?)

 

The "back panel" is just smooth so you could easily mod a grill into there for GPU intake?

That's a very strange looking case! Props to them for trying something different though! Looks to me like there needs to be a bit more of a gap between the IO and top shield - that DVI connector looks to be in a badly bent angle!

Having all the connectors on the top is a good idea in itself, not just for cooling. Having to reach round the back of the case to plug stuff in is annoying!

 

Type 'Epic Fail' into ICHC

More fun than looking at that case....

 

I'd say they have definitely missed an opportunity to have a large slow spinning intake on the back of the case to provide extra cooling for multiple gpu setups, especially as the intake fans for the gpus are on that side too! I also agree, £170 for steel and plastic is very disappointing.

 

Does anyone else think:

OMFG, BATMOBILE?

 

I mainly want the best case for being quiet (for making music with Cakewalk),
cool (for getting the bargain from an overclocked Core i7 920), and keeping the
dust out. I wonder if this case or which could be the one?

 

Will it Blend? cuz i surely like it better that way :S

 

I actually like the design but there are areas that I would like to see in a v2.
Such as; brushed aluminium and the rear being able to house a large rad. and provide a mesh.
I might just get something else now...

 

Good idea and very bad implementation of that idea. It looks incredible big and yet there is no space inside at all, seems they wasted the space on fancy plastic design junk and a motorized door witch is done before and also epically failed in the history of failed PC cases.

Man I really really need to design my own case...