SilverStone Raven RV05 Case Review

Test Setup

Professional testing requires the emulation of real-world situations but with repeatable results; thus, a perfectly controllable test setup and environment are required, especially for comparable results. Testing the thermal performance of any case with a typical real-world setup technically limits the comparability of the results to this setup alone, as an active system interacts with its environment and the change of a single component would alter myriads of variables. For our case reviews, we developed synthetic loads that emulate the thermal output of real systems, but these are passive, steady and quantifiable loads. This allows us to test the thermal capabilities of the case alone, as if it would have to deal with the entire thermal load by itself, regardless of what system an end user might install in it.

Laboratory data loggers are used to monitor the PT100 sensors and control the safety relays, which are fully accessible via our custom software. We have created three such loads, and we'll use the Micro-ATX load for this case. The ATX version simulates a 200W CPU, 50W VRM, 30W RAM and 4 × 120W GPU card thermal load. Finally, three 3.5" HDD dummy loads have also been created, with each of them converting 30W of electrical power to thermal, bringing the total thermal load of the ATX test setup up to 850W. The thermal load is immense and only the best of cases will be able to handle it for more than a few minutes, so we are also performing a test with a thermal load of 400W, with all of the aforementioned components except the HDD drives at about 42% power. This is more suitable for the majority of cases.

Thermal testing has been performed with all of the case's stock fan operating at maximum speed. Noise testing has been performed with a background noise level of 30.4dB(A). Advanced noise testing is also being performed, in order to assess the ability of the case to dampen the noise of the components installed inside it. This includes the installation of two noise-generating sources (strong fans) inside the case, one positioned approximately over the first expansion slot and one over the CPU area, which generate ≈ 44.2 dB(A) when unobstructed. During the advanced noise test, all stock cooling options of the case are entirely disabled.

Note: As the Raven RV05 can only host two 3.5" devices, the maximum load of each test configuration is reduced by 30 Watts (minus one HDD dummy load).

Results and discussion

According to our test results, the thermal performance of the SilverStone Raven RV05 is unexpectedly good for a case of its size, especially if we take the small proportions of the system area into account. It seems that SilverStone's concept of 90° rotated motherboard trays does make sense, at least as far as cooling is concerned. As such, the exotic Raven RV05 can easily compete with Midi-ATX tower cases, outperforming even cases that have nearly twice its volume. The massive 180mm intake fans supplying cool air directly into the system area give it a distinct advantage, especially in the GPU area. It naturally is not capable of competing with massive gaming cases, such as the Nanoxia DS6, but it is in the same league as the Corsair Obsidian 450D (albeit louder) and outperforms the much larger XFX Type 01 with ease.

The 180mm stock cooling fans that SilverStone is so proud of however do have a downside; they are easily audible at maximum speed. We would not go as far as to call them annoyingly loud, but 42.1dB(A) is far above what we would recommend to someone that wants to assemble a low-noise setup. The Raven RV05 however does have fan speed control switches and by reducing the speed of the fans down to about 50% they do become inaudible – at the expense of thermal performance, of course. Even at 50% speed however these fans will provide more than enough airflow for a typical single GPU and moderately tweaked gaming system.

As for the capabilities of the Raven RV05 to block noise generated by the components inside it, our results were mediocre, with the case reducing the noise level of our source from 44.2dB(A) to 42.3dB(A), a measurable but mostly imperceptible difference.