SilverStone Raven RV02 Case Review

Cooling Performance

While the RV02 looks good, appearances aren’t everything – even the recent Bat Tank would be laughable if it only did 30mph and was armed with a spud gun.

We’ve updated our testing methods since we saw the RV01, so we can’t use those numbers for comparison. Instead, we’ll look to the rather good Lian Li PC-P50, which is roughly the same price as the RV02 but uses the more traditional front-to-back pull-push method of cooling, with roof fans to augment this. The PC-P50 uses aluminium throughout, with a lusty black finish achieved through anodising.

The RV02’s intake fans can be set to low speed, so we started there. At idle, the CPU delta T of 11°C was three degrees hotter than in the PC-P50, and the GPU delta T of 18°C was four degrees hotter. We fired up Prime95 to load the CPU only to find similar results – the CPU was four degrees hotter than in the PC-P50. With 3DMark06 looping the Canyon Flight test, the GPU delta T escalated to a whopping 50°C, a full 17°C hotter than in the PC-P50. In fact, the RV02 was one of the hottest cases we've tested to date with its fans set to low speed.


Switching the fans to full speed didn’t offer much improvement. The idle delta Ts improved by only 1°C, so the PC-P50 was still able to cool our hardware better when that hardware wasn’t doing anything. Loading the CPU with Prime95 showed similarly poor results for the RV02 as the delta T was only 27°C compared with the 24°C with the PC-P50. Finally, with 3DMark06 doing its thing, the GPU delta T saw a 6°C improvement over the results seen with the fans on low. However, the 44°C delta T was still 11°C hotter than that of the PC-P50.

Conclusion

We were excited to see the new Raven, as it looked like a huge step forward from the original design. With the three 180mm intake fans running practically the whole length of the floor of the case, and the vertical installation of the expansion cards, we were sure we’d see great cooling. However, even with the fans set to spin at maximum speed, the RV02’s cooling doesn’t compare well with that of more conventional cases. At least the RV02 was suitably quiet, even with the fans blowing as hard as they could.

The case really looks the part, with its clean internals and attractive side window, and while we’d have liked the case to be structurally stronger, it still makes a good impression. However, the RV02 hasn’t delivered on the promise of superior cooling from the rotated motherboard, while the resulting length of 650mm will probably preclude a good few people from using it. But while it’s back to the drawing board for SilverStone and Lucius Fox, we can’t wait to see the next Raven case, as this one is far better than the first.

• Features
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• x
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• -
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• 7/10

• Build Quality
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• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
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• 7/10

• Ease of Use
• x
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• x
• x
• x
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• x
• -
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• 8/10

• Performance
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• -
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• 4/10

• Value
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• -
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• 6/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 6/10

Score Guide