Right before CES, we showed you the Raven RVZ02, but at that time Silverstone was unable to give us very many details because the design wasn't finalized yet. In fact, the only image that we had at our disposal was a render. At the show, we managed to get a closer look at the case, and we liked it so much that we even gave it a Top Pick award for the show.
The case itself measures 350 x 350 mm and is only 80 mm wide. Silverstone managed this by removing all the unnecessary bits on the inside, which apparently includes removing all case fans. Looking at its design, however, it doesn't seem like it will be much of a problem. Granted, you won't get thermals to write home about, but considering that the RVZ02 occupies less space than the renown NCase M1 (which many deem one of the few true-to-life compact performance-oriented Mini-ITX cases), we're actually quite impressed with the design. We'll have to see how the thermals pan out in practice, though, because removing all case fans is a gutsy move.
Inside the case you will be able to fit a Mini-ITX board, a full-size dual-slot graphics card (although we'd recommend a blower-style card), an SFX power supply, and two 2.5" drives. After the slim slot-loading optical drive is added, there is no more room, but that's okay.
For most folks this kind of space is plenty. Still, this chassis is very, very small. With a displacement of 9.8 liters, you will have to carefully pick your hardware – especially the cooling hardware. You won't be getting any form of liquid cooling into this baby.
The model that Silverstone had on display was still a prototype, which was only finished a couple days prior to the show. To us, though, it looked like it could well have been a market-ready product, as we didn't find any apparent kinks that still needed to be worked out. The coating of the case didn't seem entirely finished yet (or was heavily damaged), but the basic internal layout and basic aesthetic design did appear finished.
So, why did we give this case an award, if it's so limited? We like that it takes a step back and gives you only the basics. By doing so, it's able to squeeze hardware into a form factor in a way that's previously unseen, and with the way it's built, it's a right easy system to assemble, too. Silverstone set out to make assembly as straightforward as possible, which is something we can warmly welcome in the Mini-ITX space.
Silverstone didn't know exactly when the case would be available but expects it to launch around the time of Computex, in about six months. Pricing wasn't specified yet either, but we were told that it would cost about as much as the RVZ01 goes for, which is about $90, depending on where you get it.
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