SilverStone Raven RV05

System Setup:

Building a high-end system around the Raven RV05 is easy... in fact, I've done it three times now. The original build was my first Core i7 5960X + X99 motherboard setup that ran into issues but at the end of the day seems to be some freak, isolated incident that hasn't been reproducible with the Raven RV05 nor the MSI X99S SLI PLUS motherboard. Anyhow, after that original build, during the interim period I had assembled a Gigabyte X99 system. Once receiving the new MSI X99S SLI PLUS motherboard, I rebuilt the system around this motherboard for good measure. The Raven RV05 and its fans worked great.

The last system configuration I've left the Raven RV05 happily running in our labs with was the MSI X99S SLI PLUS, Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E, Alpine 20 Plus CO cooler, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 graphics card, Intel M.2 SATA SSD, 4 x 4GB Crucial DDR4 memory, and SilverStone NightJar 450W power supply.

The system with its two Air Penetrator fans have been running great and I've run into no thermal issues or other problems attributed to the case. Of course, doing all my Linux installations via USB flash drives and then obtaining all software via distribution package management systems, I rarely ever have a need for any optical drives... Only the few times per year I'll install Windows on a system for cross-OS benchmarking, but evidently the Windows installer can also work now from a USB flash drive too.

The completed system.

Conclusion:

I've been fond of SilverStone's Raven line-up going back to the original Raven RV01 and have reviewed many of the Raven products but find the RV05 perhaps most interesting since it does away with the 5.25-inch drive bays of the ATX chassis. Linux users especially rarely need optical drive bays, but if you still do, the Raven RV05 can accommodate a slot-loading slim optical drive.

During the three builds I've done with the Raven RV05 chassis, I have no critical complaints. The only wish list items for the RV05 would be improved cable management possibilities and some enthusiasts would probably like to be able to store more than two 3.5-inch / two 2.5-inch drives in the system. Still using the other Raven cases within our test environment, I've grown to really like the 90-degree rotated motherboard layout as it's much more convenient accessing the I/O ports of the motherboard.

At the end of the day the SilverStone Raven RV05 is another winner and I'm really happy with this case. Pricing on the RV05 isn't too bad with it currently retailing for only about $116 USD on Amazon.com, which actually feels like a bargain compared to some of SilverStone's even higher-priced enclosures while meeting them in terms of quality and robustness.