Silverstone Raven RV01-BW Case review :: Exterior

The RAVEN RV01 is said to resemble a Stealth fighter on SilverStone's website. The F-1117A Night Hawk is the world's first manned Stealth aircraft with angles that deflect radar energy and Radar Absorbent Material on the skin of the aircraft to reduce the Radar Cross Section (RCS) of the plane to a level much smaller than the size of the plane would suggest. The design of the SilverStone Raven RV01 has facets making it look a little like an F-117 fighter in general looks.

The front has a door covering the 5.25" drives. The door slides down with a push to the top of the door exposing the 5.25" drive bays. The Raven RV01 has five 5.25" external drive bays with all exposed when the door is open. Above the door is a blue LED light that turns on when the system is powered on. It looks almost like a Cylon from BattleStar Gallactica with its single blue LED.

The top of the case has the Front Panel IO which is located under a flip up cover. The FP I/O on the case consists of a single Firewire port, two USB 2.0 ports, the Audio and MIC ports. The Power and Reset buttons are just before the FP I/O. These are stylish in design compared to the normal circular buttons found on most cases. The bottom of the case has a dust filter that periodically needs cleaning.

One thing SilverStone says in the manual kind of bothers me. They require cords attached to the case expansion slots to be shorter than 70mm due to the cover height. While this works fine with a DVI cable by itself, this can cause an issue if you have an adapter to a HDMI monitor from a DVI connection or a VGA adapter to the DVI connection as they will be taller than 70mm.

The rear of the case is a little different than most cases on the market, as the motherboard expansion slots and I/O area is not located in this position. The bottom of the rear of the case is where the PSU is installed. Also here are two holes for a water cooling system if desired. SilverStone has thought out the design of the PSU area as it is angled as much of the case is on top and bottom.

The left side panel of the case has a small window on the left hand area of the panel. To open the side panels you need to take off the top cover and move the clip holding the side panels in place to the open position. The next step is to pull the side panels outward to remove them from the case. There is a small grill on the bottom of the side panels to provide adequate ventilation pulling air to the bottom and with the step effect moving it upwards through the case.

The top of the case is also where the 7 PCI expansion covers are located. There is a panel which slides forward much like the front door on the case. In order to slide the panel forward you need to turn two dials one at a time in the direction indicated and slide the panel off. A 120mm fan is under the panel, the Rear I/O area of the case and the expansion slot covers. SilverStone uses their AeroSlots for the PCI expansion covers which have holes that improve airflow as the air is drawn out from the case from the top.