SilverStone Raven RV04 Review

Performance Analysis

The results for the RV04 at its quiet low speed setting are great, especially on the CPU front where it's able to outclass every other non-SilverStone chassis despite the low fan speed. The GPU results here are more mid-league, but still impressive for a minimum speed result, and the AP181 fans immediately demonstrate solid performance.

Pushing the fans to medium speed results in just a minor noise increment but a nice improvement as far as temperatures go. The CPU delta T result drops by 3°C (which is brilliant considering how cool it already was at low speed), while the GPU falls by 2°C. Most of the case's noise comes from the front fans, which are left mostly exposed by the case door. Pleasingly, the noise from the rest of our test hardware proved less easy to pick out.


The jump in noise from medium to high speed is bigger than that from low to medium, but the RV04 still only produces a distinct whooshing sound rather than a deafening fan noise, and for the temperatures it achieves here the noise levels are certainly acceptable. The CPU delta T result falls to just 42°C, a result we've only seen matched by the SilverStone FT02. Once again the Air Penetrator fans show their might, with the essentially unrestricted airflow from the front serving the CPU very well. The GPU drops to 46°C, which isn't as great as we were hoping for, although we suspect the benefit of the fan and its dividers would be more apparent in a multi-GPU set-up.

Conclusion

As is typically the situation with a SilverStone case, we have little doubts over the RV04's cooling capabilities. Its outstanding CPU temperatures and low GPU temperatures mean it's inarguably a great chassis if all you're concerned about is getting some serious airflow across your components. Naturally though, anyone with even a thought towards water-cooling will have to look elsewhere. Other than the floor mounted SSDs, building and tidying your system is also an easy process once you've glanced over the manual and gotten used to the internal layout.


Our two main issues with the RV04 are to do with build quality and price, and the two are closely linked as it's mostly the areas of poor construction that make us assert that the newest Raven chassis isn't worth its £135 price tag. We can just about tolerate panels not fitting together well on a pre-production sample, but the RV04's door is unforgivable. A case door has two major functions – to open and to close. Somehow, the RV04's door actually manages to make a mess of both.

The rotated design, removable motherboard tray and high quality fans still aren't enough to justify the price either, as the case simply doesn’t feel like it should cost as much as it does. When you consider that Corsair's Carbide Air 540, which achieves temperatures not far off the RV04, retails for almost £20 less, SilverStone's effort becomes even harder to recommend. However, with a revised outer shell and improved build quality, the case could well be worth a look, as it ticks many boxes elsewhere. Thankfully, that's exactly what the Fortress FT04 should bring to the table, so if you dig the design and are determined to stick to air cooling, our advice is to look into that once it's available.

**Please note that after identifying an issue with the CPU fan speed, we have retested the RV04 and have updated the cooling charts and Cooling score to reflect the new, better temperatures. This has not affected our overall thoughts about the chassis, however**