First Look: Silverstone Raven RV02-E PC Case

First Look: Silverstone Raven RV02-E

Manufacturer: Silverstone

Silverstone has tweaked its unique Raven chassis - the RV02 - by ripping out the guts and and fusing together the insides of its Fortress FT02 chassis. The new "dash E" designation on the RV02-E denotes the difference in cases if you're looking for one in your local retailer.


The new E version still sucks in air at the bottom of the case and expels it through the top, and still has the motherboard mounting position rotated 90 degrees clockwise so that expansion cards are fitted vertically. As before, this means the CPU and graphics card coolers also blow vertically upwards, and the air sucked in at the base can slide past expansion cards and vent out the top of the case.

Where Silverstone have improved the case is when it comes to hard drives. The original RV02's bays have been replaced with five black plastic hot-swappable bays with support for 2.5in and 3.5in drives on the E model. Silverstone explained there were quite a few complaints that the standard Raven RV02 had left people a little short in the storage department by only offering capacity for three 3.5in drives, so five bays should alleviate this issue for all but the most demanding users.

The new drive bays are extended slightly but Silverstone claims this shouldn't make a difference to the main motherboard and PC fitting.


Silverstone has removed the tool-less 5.25in drive bays in favour of standard screw retained ones now, and the base fans have been changed for Silverstones latest 180mm "Air Penetrators". The AP's offer better direct airflow in a positive pressure design. Clearly the case is still not suitable for watercooling.


The standard Raven RV02 had chunky grills on the fans which actually had to be removed when 12in graphics cards were installed because they are just too thick. The new AP fans have integrated grills though so these extra long cards fit fine. On the top there's still the simple high and low switch fan control for them, as well as a normal 120mm exhaust fan too.


Silverstone says the integrated foam in the photographs won't be there in the final retail sample, and there might be some other slight modifications that it wasn't yet ready to divulge.

Apart from that the RV02-E is pretty much the same as the existing RV02, and if you're looking for something really new - the Raven RV03 is due at Computex in June, along with the incredibly sexy TJ11.