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CAN WE SKIP THE GOLD TRIM NEXT YEAR?
Silverstone’s latest Raven is the third in the series best known for its rotated- motherboard configuration, which puts the I/O backplane at the top of the chassis. The PSU mounts at the bottom-front of the case, and the entire mobo setup is cooled from below, using two upward-blowing 18cm fans.
The Raven tallies some impressive numbers: There’s room for eight PCI slots, four 3.5-inch hard drive mounts, two 2.5-inch bays behind the motherboard tray, and eight 5.25-inch bays. The spacious interior can fit a 12.2-inch GPU with ease. Thanks to four cable-routing cutouts, a cleanly wired build is easy. And the two 18cm filtered intake fans gave the RV03 the best air-cooling temperatures of any case in our roundup, including the premium ones.
We’re not sure how we feel about the RV03’s exterior, though. Last year’s Raven RV02 had a similar superhero-themed look, but was all black. This Raven has two gold stripes running up the front of the chassis, which strikes us as a bit tacky.
Overall, the Silverstone Raven RV03 is a solid case, and gets points for ingenuity. It may look a little garish and feel a little plasticky, but it’s roomy, features a stunning amount of ports and slots, and offers a crazy-organized build and great cooling.
Stunningly organized build; tons of slots and ports; very roomy; good cooling
Lots and lots of plastic; tacky color scheme
$140, www.silverstonetek.com
LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE IT SHOULD COST LESS
The Antec Six Hundred V2 retails for $80. At that price, it’s competing with Bit- Fenix’s Shinobi and CM’s Storm Enforcer—and losing. The interior is unpainted and everything feels flimsy, from the just-pull-till-it-comes-loose optical drive bezels to the just-bend-till-it-snaps-off PCI slot covers, of which there are seven. Nothing, literally nothing, is toolless, either, so get that screwdriver handy.
The Six Hundred V2 comes with two fans: a 20cm top fan and a 12cm exhaust fan. The case has room for two front 12cm intakes. There is a window on the left-side panel, with a 12cm fan mounting, and also, curiously, a dark window above the optical drive bays so you can… well, look at your optical drive? These confusing cosmetic choices are all over the V2.
The Six Hundred V2 has room for six HDD and three ODD trays, and can accommodate GPUs up to 11.5 inches, so no dual-Radeon cards for you.
We were able to utilize the two cable-routing cutouts to tidy things up a bit. The front-loaded, hotswap 2.5-inch caddy is also kind of a cool addition. But ultimately, the cheap build quality, abundance of garish plastic trim, and lack of stock fans make this a hard sell.
Inexpensive; decent stock cooling for the price range; 2.5" caddy
Nothing is toolless; curious design choices; cramped
$80, www.antec.com
Comments are closed on this article
delpi98
October 24, 2011 at 1:35pm
I like this I am new reader thank you to post Apple Black Friday Black Friday Apple
mocomike
July 14, 2011 at 3:12pm
ive been intersted in the fractal arc case since these guys reviewed it. Only problem is No One Sells It! Why must you tease us with a case we cant buy! fractal shows only Ncix.com and newegg as their dealers in the us but neither of them has it. I even tried amazon but no luck...
yancey42
June 14, 2011 at 8:48pm
I was wondering why no cases from NZXT. I just bought my first NZXT case for around $35 from Amazon. It was a GAMMA Classic Series ATX Mid Tower Interior Steel Chassis (Black). It was pretty barebones, without a lot of fans, but had places to mount them, if needed. It seems to have good build quality, and for $35 bucks it had both hidden cable routing and tool-less hard drive mounting, and included zip-ties (A nice touch). I bought this for a server build I was working on, but it would have worked well for a budget build as well. Don't know if you could get a large graphics card in there or not, but did I mention it was $35 bucks. I have bought cases in the past for much more without this ones build quality. I never worked with a NZXT case before, but was impressed. I know MaximumPC has reviewed NZXT cases in the past, I was disappointed that one wasn't included in this review.
nedwards
June 14, 2011 at 10:51pm
We just reviewed the NZXT H2, and I asked if they had any cases we hadn't yet seen when I was collecting cases for the roundup. They didn't at that time. They did just announce some new cases, I believe, and we'll review 'em when we get 'em in.
yancey42
June 14, 2011 at 8:48pm
I was wondering why no cases from NZXT. I just bought my first NZXT case for around $35 from Amazon. It was a GAMMA Classic Series ATX Mid Tower Interior Steel Chassis (Black). It was pretty barebones, without a lot of fans, but had places to mount them, if needed. It seems to have good build quality, and for $35 bucks it had both hidden cable routing and tool-less hard drive mounting, and included zip-ties (A nice touch). I bought this for a server build I was working on, but it would have worked well for a budget build as well. Don't know if you could get a large graphics card in there or not, but did I mention it was $35 bucks. I have bought cases in the past for much more without this ones build quality. I never worked with a NZXT case before, but was impressed. I know MaximumPC has reviewed NZXT cases in the past, I was disappointed that one wasn't included in this review.
fallout330
June 14, 2011 at 4:41pm
Looks like the Corsair 650D would be my choice....if I had flexibillity with cost. Great looking Case.
Kazz
June 14, 2011 at 8:04am
Sub-$100 is where it's at for me. And I don't need a case to come with countless fans. I install my own. The BitFenix looks good...
newegg911
June 13, 2011 at 7:11pm
I'm with Neufeld. I actually consider tooless PCI brackets a minus. They are almost always uneeded garbage.
newegg911
June 13, 2011 at 7:09pm
I still don't like it, but the Thermaltake Level 10 is almost reasonably priced this time.
What's up with the Silverstone Temejin? $600? Are you freakin' kidding me? Does it include an expresso machine? It doesn't even look like anything special anyway. And what's up with the TEN bay slots? Cool... it can hold every optical drive I've ever owned at once! I can jam my 4x CD burner from 1997 in there!
I have a HAF 922 and I love it. It's heavy steel, has awesome cooling out of the box, and can be found for under a C-note.
Jasker
June 13, 2011 at 4:35pm
Since when is 57 degrees hotter than 59? Silverstone won system burn also.
MrSatyre
June 13, 2011 at 4:31pm
Huh? The Temijin's slots all point to the top?!? Who wants all their cables sticking out of their case's top like Medusa?
Marthian
June 13, 2011 at 11:52pm
to some, it looks cool. Others, why on earth are there cables up there?
I also believe the reason for the wierd mount is because the air moves better up so I hear. Vapor chambers in the nvidia gpus benefit from this I believe.
Cooketh
June 13, 2011 at 4:14pm
I'm sitting on the Thermaltake Xaser which is a massive tower. I believe it cost me around the $200 range and though it's large, it's all metalic, very little plastic, a ton of fan slots, excellent cooling, roomy, all the perks, but no USB 3 on front.
It's similar to the Silverstone one in alot of ways, but not as tricked out internally. I'd reccomend anyone who wants a big case for modding, cooling, etc take a look at it and the Corsair case featured in this review. My friend uses that corsair case and he loves it. And it looks beautiful in person.
plaskon
June 13, 2011 at 4:04pm
Cooler Master HAF-912 Advanced ... toolless, roomy, plus two very quiet 200mm fans.
Insula Gilliganis
June 13, 2011 at 2:45pm
Wrong about "early Dream Machine builds" not listing the case used.. take off the S on "buildS".. only the original 1996 boot 01 Dream Machine didn't list the case used. But a year later with the 1997 Dream Machine 02, the case was listed as the IW-A500 CompuDEX ATX Medium Tower and every case used in the Dream Machine builds going forward were also listed.
The one time I really cared that Maximum PC miss mentioning what case was used was in the November 2000 issue when reviewing the "Chamsalot P-III 1GHz". Josh Norem mentioned that it was the "Case of the Gods" and "The case is an ace!" but the model number wasn't listed in the specs and only mentioned that it was made by Antec. I hope Mark Miller (aka Chamsalot back then and I believe now roams the MaximumPC hallways as "Number Six") will tell us what model Antec that he used 11 years ago! If only that RAID array would have worked correctly, Mark would have had a Kick Ass 11 rig in his law office! BTW, that case would have fit in nicely inside a Cylon basestar. By your command!
Neufeldt2002
June 13, 2011 at 12:54pm
I really don't understand why you knock points off for a non tool-less design on the PCI slots. I have had tool-less and every one has been flimsy and cheap, that leads to breakage and loose cards. I would gladly take screws on the PCI mounts anytime over tool-less, unless they are thumb screws.
