With Raven RV01 SilverStone introduced a new concept on the market: it was the first case where the motherboard is rotated 90º, making the rear connectors to be available on the top part of the case. Now SilverStone releases another case based on the same concept, Raven RV02, which costs far less than the original Raven. Let’s compare the two and see if it is worthwhile buying this case.
The motherboard rotation was done to improve thermal dissipation, especially from the video card, as hot air tends to go up and high-end video cards usually blow hot air from the inside to the outside of the case – usually to the rear of the case, but with Raven hot air is blown to the top.
On Figures 1 and 2 you have an overall look on Raven RV02. The case is made of steel with all parts painted black. The top V-shaped transparent acrylic part glows blue when the PC is turned on.
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Figure 1: SilverStone Raven RV02.
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Figure 2: SilverStone Raven RV02.
Here you can already see one of the main differences between RV01 and RV02. On RV01 the acrylic window is placed on the left panel, while on RV02 this part is placed on the right panel. This means that on RV01 the motherboard tray is placed on the same side as practically all cases, i.e. on the right side of the case. On RV02, however, the motherboard tray is located on the left side of the case.
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Figure 3: Right panel.
Another main difference between RV01 and the new RV02 is on the front panel. RV01 features a robotic cover for the disk drive bays, which was removed on RV02. Both RV01 and RV02 have five 5 ¼” bays, but on RV02 you can get three extra 5 ¼” bays if you remove the internal hard disk drive cage.
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Figure 4: Front panel.
Since the motherboard is installed 90º rotated compared to traditional cases, there are no connectors on the rear side of the case. The only thing available on the rear panel is a removable washable dust filter, which is placed in front of the power supply fan.
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Figure 5: Rear panel.
