SilverStone Raven RV04 Case Review

By Tom Jaskulka

Manufacturer: SilverStone Technology Co., LTD.
Product Name: Raven RV04
Model Number: SST-RV04B-W
UPC: 844761010300
Price As Tested: $159.99 (Newegg / Amazon)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by SilverStone.

Today Benchmark Reviews will be looking at the lastest Raven enclosure from SilverStone, the Raven SST-RV04B-W. Since the RV01, the Raven series served as the “experimental” arm of the SilverStone chassis lineup; testing out unique ideas like a 90-degree rotated motherboard orientation and exotic applications of materials in a line of enclosures that had the extreme looks (and performance) to match. The RV04 forgoes the vertical orientation of the motherboard in previous Ravens and instead rotates it yet another 90 degrees. Utilizing a cooling design inspired by the impressive micro-ATX TJ-08E, the ATX Raven RV04 uses two 180mm AP fans in a slightly more traditional format – well, as traditional as a Raven case can be…

Features & Specifications

Model No.	SST-RV04B-W (black + window)
Material	Reinforced plastic outer shell, steel body
Color	black
Motherboard	SSI-EEB, SSI-CEB, Extended ATX, ATX, Micro-ATX
Drive Bay	External (5.25″ x 2), Internal 3.5″ x 7 (2 hot-swap) , 2.5” x 4
Cooling System	Front 2 x Air Penetrator AP181 180mm intake fan 600/900/1200rpm, 18/25/34dBA
	Rear 1 x 120mm fan slot (option)
Expansion Slot	8
Front I/O Port	USB 3.0 x 2 audio x 1 MIC x 1
Power Supply	1 x optional standard PS2(ATX)
Expansion Card	Compatible up to 13.3” long, width restriction-6.69″
Limitation of CPU cooler	165mm
Limitation of PSU	180mm
Net Weight	10.9 kg
Dimension	219mm (W) x 581mm (H) x 497mm (D), 63.2 liters
Extra	Support two Kensington locks

Raven RV04 Overview

The Raven series has garnered a reputation for thinking a little differently, and the RV04 is no exception. Just when you were getting used to the “revolutionary” 90-degree motherboard orientation, SilverStone revolves it another 90 degrees – and then swaps it to the other side. Obviously there’s going to be a few things that are different in such an enclosure, so let’s take a look.

The long-awaited RV04 has been on the market for a little while now, and it seems some reviews take issue with the primarily-plastic front and top. I wasn’t a fan initially just looking at the pictures, but realizing the goal was to make the front and top “one piece” explains the design and helps the rest of the chassis make a little more sense. I don’t really feel that there’s more plastic than any of the other Ravens, as they all used some form of molded plastic. I think the main discrepancy for most is the feel of the plastic used on the front door, it’s a little softer than most are used to with a noticeable amount of flex. This is actually by design; the door used in some prototypes was far too brittle to survive shipping, so SilverStone went with a more flexible material to prevent damage. While plastic this soft and flexible doesn’t normally appear on computer cases most consumers are accustomed to, that’s exactly what makes the Raven series of cases different (and why they are utilized to try new materials and configurations). When you consider that the front door consists of one continuous piece of plastic, it’s even more impressive and really drives home the intent to unify the panels. Is it different? Sure. I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing – and again, different is what the Raven series is all about.

I’ll probably talk more about the front door later, as it is one of the more polarizing traits of the RV04. The front is pretty streamlined otherwise, with just the Raven logo and a stylized LED that contains the power and HDD activity lights for the chassis.

The back of the chassis helps clue you in to what lies beneath those wavy lines and strange contours. The right side of the picture above isn’t flipped or mirrored, that’s what the back of the Raven RV04 looks like. The inverted ATX orientation places the motherboard on the left side on the chassis, with the CPU placed beneath any graphics cards or other PCI-E devices. The PSU shares a compartment with the optical drives (or any other 5.25″ devices) up top, and you can just see the removable dust filter that is accessible without removing the top cover.

The one-piece plastic front door conceals twin 180mm SilverStone Air Penetrator fans, both with speed control switches (located just above the fans themselves). An easily removable high-flow air filter prevents dust from accumulating unnecessarily throughout the rest of the case, and the open sides mean there isn’t any lack of cool air accessible to these fans.

Opening the door itself is a little unnerving at first primarily due to the flex in the material, but that’s definitely one solid piece of plastic attached securely by a thick, sturdy hinge. SilverStone managed to make the plastic door feel “premium,” as crazy as that sounds – it doesn’t feel like a normal piece of plastic anyway. Any flex is in the door itself, the actual opening and closing motions of the hinge and latch are very smooth. After getting used to the way the door feels, I still found myself thinking of ways I could stiffen the bottom edge of the door – the choice of material actually makes a lot of sense, but if they could have found a way to dial up the stiffness in the corners of the door I think less people would find fault with it.

The right side of the case shows a glimpse of the internals through the clear window. I like the way this window is mounted internally, rather than the exposed method of the earlier Raven chassis as it gives a more streamlined appearance overall. Both hinged panels are secured by two thumbscrews and appear to be interchangeable giving you an easy option for a windowless case (well, as long as you don’t mind showing off your cable management skills).

The left side of the RV04 is much less interesting, as is the “backside” of most cases, but it gives you a better view of the hinge (which is an impressive feat of engineering in its own right – the action is smooth and solid, surprisingly so for a plastic hinge).

The bottom continues the “one-piece” theme, as the front door wraps underneath the chassis in the front. Those are mounting holes for 2.5″ drives in the impressions spanning across the bottom, and the screws are there to secure the bottom-mounted 3.5″ drive hot-swap bays.

Flipping the case over (to the top) completes the “one-piece” design, showcasing those flowing lines that continue on to the PSU intake filter. I can see why they chose to continue those lines to the rear of the case, but the whole design seems a bit superflous. I would have preferred to see more of the angular chevrons used on the front of the case with less of the PSU mesh “interrupted” by the pinstripe-type design, but that’s entirely my own preferences speaking (I’ve always preferred angles and geometric shapes to more organic forms). From a design standpoint, those lines do a pretty good job of tying all the panels together, I just think it looks a bit busy and extraneous.

I think if I mention “that’s what the Raven series is for” again though, you’ll probably stop reading the rest of the review (I’m not promising the topic won’t come up again…). The power and reset buttons up top are “pass through” buttons that press the actual ones located on the chassis itself, allowing that door to swing open without any obstructions. The rest of the I/O (two USB 3.0 ports and the headphone/mic jacks) are on the right edge of the case.

Raven RV04 Detailed Features

If you thought the exterior was interesting, just wait till we get to the inside…

…but one more observation and I’ll move on (yeah, we’re back to the door). The lines on the front make an interesting subdued design on the back of the door too, and it reminded me of that scene in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne is painting the Kevlar bodysuit black. If SilverStone ever wanted to make a special edition of the RV04 (or just an alternate design), I think they’d have a hit if they drew some inspiration from the materials that suit uses (carbon fiber and Kevlar – of course, it is a fictional item, so there’s some wiggle room I would hope…). Those materials aren’t cheap or easy to work with, so I can completely understand why they weren’t used (carbon fiber by itself is very brittle as well, so that still wouldn’t solve the shipping problem). Still, for a premium option…just a thought anyway. Would you like to see carbon fiber and Kevlar on consumer PC cases, or is that “modder only” territory?

Okay, with that aside we can dig into the RV04’s internals a bit more before we start the build. Removing the side panels highlights the inverted motherboard orientation and showcases the hot swap bays (and CPU heatsink support) at the bottom. A removable drive cage sits behind the bottom AP fan, while the PCI-E slots will get their own blast of air from the top fan. Just picturing the components installed reveals a pretty smart layout – each zone of hot chips will get their own direct stream of cool air. Some of the other Ravens were pretty large and used more than just two fans – the RV04 is almost mid-tower sized and promises to offer a similar level of performance to its earlier siblings.

Here’s a closer look at a unique addition to the RV04 (and a benefit of inverting the motherboard). This adjustable stand can be positioned to support a large CPU cooler heatsink assembly, adding some peace of mind to the longevity of your components. As the twin 180mm AP fans offer such great air-cooling performance, a tower heatsink seems to be the obvious choice for this chassis (although 120/240/360mm rads would fit too).

I’ll skip ahead a bit to show that SilverStone’s own Argon AR03 fits perfectly after a little adjustment (the manual helps here, and is pretty useful overall in describing the various unique features of the RV04). I’d imagine almost every air cooler (besides some unique options like the Zalman 9900MAX series – although with careful placement it’d be possible!) could benefit from this support, or it can be folded neatly out of the way if you don’t want to utilize it.

The RV04 doesn’t ignore support for the graphics cards either. Three brackets are included that attach to this removable brace – of course, you can omit these entirely as well, but when you get into the larger GPUs it is nice to be able to support them somehow. The Sapphire Radeon 7970 in the above picture has started to noticeably sag after almost two years, so the inverted mounting and support brackets are very welcome.

Pulling off the top panel opens up quite a bit of room to work. The anti-vibration pads for the power supply unit “rails” are visible, and there’s room for any size of PSU (especially if it doesn’t have to share room with optical drives, which are installed in the front of this area. The filter for the power supply is easily removable and shares the same “high-flow” mesh as the front filter.

Building in the RV04

Now for the fun part! Building a system in a case is the best way to identify any potential issues, so let’s get to it.

There aren’t many additional accessories included with the RV04, most items are already attached or installed. On the left is the GPU support bracket (with three card supports that attach to the brace), while the right side depicts the three pairs of brackets for swapping out the front 180mm AP fans with three 120mm fans – essentially, these are for mounting a 360mm radiator and fans to the front of the chassis. The bag of screws is typical of SilverStone cases – while a few thumbscrews are included, you’ll definitely need your screwdriver to work with the RV04 along with a little luck to figure out which screws go where. I’m definitely spoiled by cases like Corsair’s Air 540, which is completely tool-less and a joy to change out hardware in – SilverStone cases are known for their engineering, not their user-friendliness. Still, I can’t fault them too much for this – it’s nice to be “treated like an adult” in a sense, but it’ll make compulsive tinkerers a little frustrated.

At least the top and side hinged panels are afffixed by thumbscrews, and are thus easily removed. Both side panels need to be removed in order to remove the top plastic assembly – this is done to assist with securing the case with the Kensington slot on the windowed panel. If the case is locked, it would defeat the purpose if you could just remove the top separately.

The PSU installs neatly on a set of rails that run the entire length of the chassis, so the RV04 will definitely fit any length power supply you choose to use (even more so if you aren’t using any optical drives). The top filter (and the chassis overall) is designed for the PSU to have its own isolated intake, but I suppose there isn’t anything stopping you from flipping the PSU upside down and using it as a chassis exhaust (if you’re okay with pulling hot air straight off of a graphics card). Obviously SilverStone’s recommendation is the one that makes the most sense here, and has the side benefit of placing the main cables from this semi-modular power supply right next to the cable routing holes.

That gives us a good excuse to take our first look at the motherboard tray of the RV04. The cable routing holes are pretty generous and there are adequate tie-down points located in strategic places to assist with further cable management. The rolled edges at the front and bottom give a little extra peace of mind for running SATA and power cables to drives, and there’s even a dedicated routing hole for the CPU AUX cable. This cable run is usually the longest one in most chassis, but the inverted ATX orientation doesn’t make this longer than any other standard ATX case – just make sure your power supply is relatively modern (and usually above 500W) and you probably won’t have any issues.

Here’s a trick that’ll make routing that cable MUCH easier – just route it and plug it in to the motherboard before replacing the removable motherboard tray. That’s right, the RV04 allows you to install the motherboard normally or outside of the case. You’ll need to remove three screws to do it, but it’s an entirely different experience to install a motherboard (especially with a large air cooler on the CPU) on a tray that is removable. The inverted orientation means you’ll probably need to detach a few cables if you want to remove the tray once the system is completely assembled (or just flip the case upside down!), but this isn’t that much of an inconvenience compared to the utility of a removable motherboard tray. Besides, you can still utilize the CPU cooler cutout to install CPU coolers like any other case if you don’t want to mess up your cables.

Five 3.5″ drives can fit in the removable drive cage, with another two in the hot-swap brackets on the floor of the case. The drive cage removes with a thumbscrew and two regular screws, and the spacing between the drives still leaves room for a bit of airflow to the CPU. If you plan on using 2.5″ drives, you can actually fit both 3.5″ drives and a full compliment of 2.5″ drives in the tool-less bays on the floor of the RV04. I missed them the first time, but there are cutouts in these tool-less bays for SATA connectors – upon closer inspection, it’s actually a pretty smart layout (all cables would go towards the center, making cable management significantly easier if you choose to take advantage of these drive mounts on the floor for 2.5″ drives). Solid State Drives are nice in that you can mount them anywhere, but it would be nice to see some tool-less cages for these smaller drives as they are becoming very common in enthusiast builds.

Building in the RV04, Continued

Many gaming builds aren’t necessarily storage heavy, so you may opt to just remove the drive cage and use the hot-swap bays for improved airflow.

Traditional hard drives just slide in, with a plastic hook that’ll snap into place when the drive is fully inserted. While I couldn’t find any mention of them in the manual, those webbed straps assist in removing the drives – just keep them on the floor when inserting the hard drive and you can just grab and pull if you need help extracting the drive later.

The bay closest to the front of the case allows for enough room to plug the cables in after the drive is installed. SilverStone labels these two bays as “hot-swap”, but really they should just be “tool-less,” as they don’t come with their own SATA backplane (the FT04 includes a backplane for one of these bays). Still, routing cables is easier from these bays – it would be tricky to route cables with the removable cage installed and filled with drives. SilverStone sells a few accessories that actually help with this (such as their CP06 SATA connector), so it remains an option if you need the space for additional storage.

With everything wired up, managing the inevitable mess of cables is pretty straightforward. The 8-pin AUX CPU cable is again the tricky one (a slightly shorter power supply would have allowed me to route it almost straight up and down, possibly utilizing the tie down points for an even cleaner appearance), but at least there’s enough slack that it isn’t tight or pulling on anything. The front panel connectors for USB and audio (and the switches/LEDs) are sufficient in length to do some routing as well, but you may want to attach them first and route the power cables over them to clean it up a bit more. Honestly, the only cables that gave me trouble were the 3-pin connectors for the AP fans up front (only because there weren’t two fan headers easily accessible on that side of the M5A99FX PRO R2, unless I wanted to use the CPU fan headers).

Those cables I ended up stretching underneath the Argon AR03 and using the CHASSIS fan connectors on the motherboard. In retrospect, I would probably just use some Molex adapters and tuck those cables behind the motherboard tray (attaching the fans directly to the PSU). You can control the speeds with the switches up front anyway, so they don’t need to be attached to a motherboard header.

The above photo helps illustrate another SilverStone quirk that actually deserves a mention. See those cut-out circles on the right (rear) edge of the case, above the PCI-E slot covers? You’ll need a longer bit (or just a normal screwdriver) to fasten your expansion cards down but this is one of the few places I was surprised to learn I prefer using a screwdriver to thumbscrews. Most cases simply don’t have enough room to get your fingers in to tighten down a thumbscrew, and this solution avoids all of that entirely.

When powered on, the Raven RV04 uses a muted white LED light(s) for the power indicator. It’s a nice subtle effect, punctuated by a red HDD activity LED in the center (shown on the right). If I were to be extremely picky, I’d opt for even more diffusion in that plastic strip (for a more even distribution of the LED light). It’d make the lights a little dimmer (and they aren’t glaring in the first place), but it would look even better. All the nitpicking aside, this illuminated chevron is somewhat of a tradition among the Raven line and it doesn’t look out of place here at all.

With the system assembled and all panels replaced, the “interesting” components are highlighted nicely in the window. Most gaming or work loads didn’t even require the fans to be switched to their high setting – only during extended gaming or GPU stress testing did the GPU fans get pretty noisy (when in a Crossfire configuration). Remember that all cooling by the case is done with just two fans – the level of cooling performance with this design is pretty extraordinary. Sure, a full tower packed with 10+ fans will probably be able to cool better (with more noise as well), but the efficiency of this direct-cooling design is hard to beat.

ATX Enthusiast Case Final Thoughts

I really appreciate the Raven line from SilverStone. To see these crazy ideas come to fruition and have a testbed where some of the latest engineering results can trickle down to their other cases is a fun thing to be a part of (rather than have it be restricted to some internal prototype). Of course, that’s why I like to upgrade and why I like having a chance to sample some of the latest designs from manufacturers – I’m not a “set it and forget it” type of guy, so the philosophy behind the Raven line really appeals to me.

The design language is such a departure from the rest of the Raven line that it seems more of a setup for the Raven RVZ01 (mini-ITX) case that has been under development. I personally preferred the angular “stealth bomber” look of the earlier Raven cases (I’m sure many disagree with me there), but SilverStone cases have that unique trait of looking even better in person than they do in pictures (that’s been my experience anyway). The Raven RV04 is no exception. Remember, the Raven series is for the “extreme” end of case design, there are more conservative options with the Fortress series of cases which share many of the same features.

SilverStone Raven RV04 Conclusion

While I use a testbed for most of my case builds, I don’t have a standardized test for performance as I’ll commonly tweak a build slightly to stress each case differently. This makes it a little difficult to measure performance between different cases objectively, so I try to rate each case based on its own merits. The Raven RV04 is again unique among standard ATX cases, using an inverted ATX configuration and only two 180mm AP fans as traditional front intakes. This positive pressure approach is very efficient and is capable of pushing cool air through the entire case; you can place your hand behind the vents in back and feel the heated air getting shoved out of the case. This type of efficiency results in a great noise/performance ratio – those two fans provide a lot of cooling potential without much of a noise tradeoff, even at full speed. Overall, I’m impressed with the RV04’s performance as an enthusiast case. Crossfire configurations still struggle a bit, but most cases without a side fan seem to have this in common (and two 7970s with open air coolers are going to get hot, no matter the case – unless you’re willing to ratchet up the noise levels).

Rating appearance is always difficult, especially with cases that have such polarizing designs like the Raven series. I’ll say this: I didn’t think I would like it until I saw it in person (which seems to be a common experience for me and SilverStone cases – some of the subtle details tend to stand out more in person). The design of the Raven RV04 makes more sense when you realize they were trying to “join” the surfaces of the case together, and the flowing design from front to top accomplishes that very well. I still prefer the stealth bomber / Lamborghini styling of the RV01 more than the others, but it’s amazing to see the efficiency improvements and engineering advances from case to case. Really, the RV04 executes its unique design very well – you just have to make your own decision if it fits your tastes or not.

The RV04 carries with it SilverStone’s excellent reputation for engineering and quality construction. There aren’t many companies that can pull off a case that uses only two fans for cooling and have it perform this well. Everything fits together nicely, and the quality of steel and paint are what SilverStone has become known for. The tool-less drive bays are a nice addition, but you’ll still need your trusty screwdriver to work in this Raven. I know I mentioned this before, but it’d be nice to have some more tool-less features (even though that would make it less “SilverStone” somehow…). I’m glad SilverStone’s engineers have such faith in my assembly skills, but I don’t think it would deter consumers if there were more thumbscrews involved. Even if they just started by separating the screws… Really though, none of this is a surprise for anyone that has used SilverStone cases and it seems a bit silly to complain over having to use actual screws; until you’ve built a system in some of Corsair’s enclosures that is.

The inverted design allows for some neat functionality like the CPU cooler “stand” and hot-swap bays that don’t block the main flow of air. All of the intakes are filtered (and those filters are easily removable) adding another nice touch. The removable motherboard tray is wonderful to work with – I know many builders may only use it for the initial installation, but it’s still an option that is worth the price in my opinion (if you’ve ever installed a bulky 140mm tower heatsink with push/pull fans with the motherboard still in the case, you’ll probably agree). Really, the greatest function of the RV04 is its ability to cool an enthusiast setup with just two fans – that’s pretty impressive, and makes for an excellent foundation for an air-cooled build.

As of the beginning of 2014, the SilverStone Raven SST-RV04B-W was selling online for $159.99 (Newegg / Amazon). That places it at the mid-to-high end of the “enthusiast” spectrum, where users start to demand more and more features/qualities for the price. There’s some nice options in this category (Phantom 630, Corsair Obsidian(s), CM Storm Trooper/Stryker, CM Stacker…), but none of those have the aura that surrounds the Raven cases (or use 180mm AP fans to such great effect). The RV04 is a very strong offering in the midst of many great options, but that’s typical of this price range. Anything above $100 generally gets you a great case for the money, but paying extra to get into the $150+ bracket gives you access to some unique features and designs where user preference begins to play an even bigger part. I think the only thing that may deter potential buyers is the unorthodox nature that runs throughout the Raven line – the case itself is a remarkably brilliant feat of engineering. One thing’s for sure, the mad scientists engineers that work on the Raven line of cases are probably back in their lab even now, so if you don’t like what you see you’ll probably have another Raven to choose from in the next year or so – if you do like what you see, you may want to grab an RV04 as soon as you can as the next version might be an even further departure from the last.

Overall, I fear that most end-users won’t be able to look past some of the unique qualities of this case and find the really interesting computer case that lies underneath those wavy lines. There’s more than enough here to justify a purchase if you like what you see, and as always SilverStone’s engineering is top notch (resulting in top notch performance). I think I can sum up the RV04 like this: cases like these attract the same type of people that made them. If you like your tech a little on the edge, with a sprinkling of crazy ideas and unique looks; with efficiency and engineering as core qualities (along with a dose of “Let’s see what happens if we try this!”), I’d recommend a Raven to you – and the RV04 is the most refined one yet. If you like to play it safe and prefer your cases to blend in rather than make a statement, there’s always the Fortress line of enclosures!

Pros:

+ Cutting-edge Raven developments
+ Unique look sets it apart from the crowd
+ Very efficient and effective cooling design
+ Hot-swap bays
+ Removable motherboard tray
+ Filtered intakes

Cons:

– The design might be too “Raven” for some
– Keep a screwdriver close by if you plan on switching out hardware
– Front door may have trouble on thick carpet

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.00
• Appearance: 8.00
• Construction: 9.25
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 8.00

Final Score: 8.65 out of 10.

Recommended: Benchmark Reviews Seal of Approval.