Outside

Silverstone uses the word champagne appropriately for the Raven RV03. It not only nails the trimming that runs along the front and top of the chassis, but also establishes a sense of elegance. Inspecting the exterior of the RV03, I would say that is a safe, early assumption. The Raven 3 isn’t tattooed with any large, high contrast images, intense lighting, or sharp facade. It has a relatively simple look, which is especially misleading if you aren’t familiar with Silverstone cases.

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The front of the Raven 3 is stacked with seven elongated ‘V’ impressioned plates that correspond to the external drive bays inside. Unlike many of the builds we see where a few are removable while the remainder are faux for looks, each of the Raven 3’s are functional. A larger piece finishes the front panel at the bottom, engraved with the Raven logo. You’ll find that this is actually a wall of the power supply bay.

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A corner piece melds the front to the top, equipped with the power and reset buttons as well as an activity LED, again in the wide ‘V’ form. Two USB 3.0 ports accompanied by line in/out are hidden under a small access door that borders the remaining, removable top piece of the RV03. If this is your first experience with Silverstone, you’ll likely be surprised at what is underneath: what is traditionally the rear of the case. You’ll find the typical players here, including an exhaust fan, grommets, motherboard I/O cutout, PCI slots, fan control switch, and thumbscrew access for side panels. Fear not: this removable piece can be put back into place once everything is hooked up, which adds a nice touch to the appearance of the case even when in use. The only concern I have is if you use adapters, such as DVI to VGA, the combination height may be too much.

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This means the the rear of the Raven 03 isn’t going to have a lot going on. In fact, it’s straight flash save a small air vent and 120mm fan slot. The rear side panel is very much the same way, with another fan slot available behind the CPU area of the motherboard.

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The main side panel is available with or without a window, our sample came equipped with. It’s positioned very well, hiding much of the cable management and fans, as you will find during the interior discussion. There is an odd looking vent possitioned on the area where the power supply is mounted. The reason it looks a little out of place is the type of vents they cut out, they don’t match any other area on the case but they should leave lots of room for air flow.The right side panel is much like the left but without the window. In place there is a fan mount directly behind the CPU.

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Finally, the bottom of the Raven is coated with removable filters, since again during the internal portion you will learn how the RV03 depends on bottom intake for airflow. Instead of a snap-and-pray design, Silverstone has equipped their filters with magnets. The magnets should do the job as long as you aren’t moving the case around to much, but if you pick it up and take it to a lan you might have to be careful not to drop them.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #29671 28 Feb 2013 21:51
Another case review today, we take a look at the unique Raven 3's design
NitrosDragon's Avatar
NitrosDragon replied the topic: #29673 28 Feb 2013 23:15
Awesome review! I'm glad to see that Silverstone is still pioneering the rotated motherboard style. I really enjoy it in my FT02.

I wish I could see how the Raven 3 would have handled a different heatsink while pushing high temps.
evildoer's Avatar
evildoer replied the topic: #29675 01 Mar 2013 00:19
Raven 4 is supposed to be out soonish too.

I had the Raven 3 for about six months. Very nice case and easy to build in with a ton of built in cable management.

What I didn't like with the 3 is that:

1) The Raven 2 had an extra fan on the bottom of the chassis
2) No consideration for mounting of consumer grade liquid coolers (Corsair H70, for example) I had to mount one in push&pull and vent it out the top. It looked a little weird.
3) The front panel USB were USB 3.0 A connectors that piggybacked off of I/O USB 3.0 and not a header connector.
4) The position of the power plug was kind of asinine.

From what I was told by someone I used to work with who attended Computex last y ear is that the issues I had with the Raven 3 were fixed in the Raven 4, just keep in mind that I am waaaaaaaaaay pickier than the person who told me this.

Over-all Silverstone cases, IMO, are the best there is. The Fortress and Raven series are just massive and awesome. The problem of course is they're massive. Probably why we don't see many at LAN parties!
L0rdG1gabyt3's Avatar
L0rdG1gabyt3 replied the topic: #29678 01 Mar 2013 01:08
Ive got a Raven RV01, and I really like it. My temps, with an H60 stay pretty cool.
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #29679 01 Mar 2013 01:38

evildoer wrote: 1) The Raven 2 had an extra fan on the bottom of the chassis


yeah this bothered me a little, but then I went back to what I wrote about the Raven 2 when I reviewed it. The way they had the hard drives orientated blocked the flow of air from that third fan anyhow.

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