Silverstone Raven Z RVZ01 Case Review: A Mini-ITX Masterpiece

Steve

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Read the full article at:
[newwindow=https://www.techspot.com/review/804-silverstone-raven-z-rvz01/]https://www.techspot.com/review/804-silverstone-raven-z-rvz01/[/newwindow]

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Please do more reviews on such great products. The demand for smaller systems seems to be growing fast.

And although I admire what Silverstone has created, I'm personally interested in more compact systems, ones relying on embedded graphics, something that offers a good platform for a home server. Please review those also as they appear ;)
 
I dismissed the RVZ01 the minute I saw it, but then I read the review and thought why on earth would such a perfectly designed case be offered only in cheap plastic?

I'm anticipating a fully aluminum built Fortress version or even better, carbon fiber built if I can dream.

Adults play games too and I want a show piece next my Onkyo receiver. Unless Silverstone takes the next logical step for this design I'll either go with the Jonsbo U2 with an MSI GTX 760 ITX Gaming Card, or U3 which can barely house a 10.5" card.

By the way, if you omit the Optical drive and HDD, and use the 65W version of the i5 with 1.35v RAM, then you can get away with a GTX 780ti or R9 290x at stock speeds.
 
Luay you probably want to look at the Silverstone ML07. Its the same case as the RVZ01 with a sleeker exterior.
 
This looks fantastic. If I ever get an extra thousand dollars I might do this.
Is it possible this will get tested with a liquid cooler here in the near future? (the picture shows it does)
just curious.
 
This looks fantastic. If I ever get an extra thousand dollars I might do this.
Is it possible this will get tested with a liquid cooler here in the near future? (the picture shows it does)
just curious.

You can fit a 120mm rad using a closed loop system. It will be cooler and quieter than air :) What do you want us to test? Thanks for the feedback though and glad you enjoyed the read.
 
Very nice review as usual, I was looking forward to more reviews of cases such as this because that last Asrock M* review was cool to see. I love the MITX form factor because of what it offers in such a small size (Features and what not), it seems to be gaining ground in recent years more than normal as I run into alot more MITX systems at LAN parties and other events some with extreme components.

I think the only problem that I ever see with these cases are the PSU's, the EVGA Hadron gives a 500watt Gold which is enough for most things like this 450 watt Gold, but I really wish this one had a 500watt so we could make sure to have plenty of leg room for both top tier cards and some high end processors and even headroom to overclock (But then again im kinda nuts and like to push everything to the absolute limit :p).

I love that cooler you fit for the processor in that case, it adds a nice look and shows significant improvement on the temps. It has a fit that almost looks like it was specifically designed to fit in that case.

My next complete from scratch build (Probably 2-3 years down the road after I get Haswell-E) I plan on going to Micro ATX and building something with 2 Dual GPU cards, an overclocked processor, and a closed loop system in a small case crammed to the max. Hope to see more cases on the small factor (Maybe some Micro ATX Hint hint Wink Wink) because I enjoy reading these articles and the testing done on them.
 
You can fit a 120mm rad using a closed loop system. It will be cooler and quieter than air :) What do you want us to test? Thanks for the feedback though and glad you enjoyed the read.
I don't really know, it was really early when I wrote that. I guess I would just like to see the results of it in such a compact system. But you're right it doesn't really need to be tested.

Was an awesome review though, wish more products could receive scores like this...
 
Not as pretty as other Silverstone products but looks like they've gone to town on the internal design.
 
I dismissed the RVZ01 the minute I saw it, but then I read the review and thought why on earth would such a perfectly designed case be offered only in cheap plastic?

I'm anticipating a fully aluminum built Fortress version or even better, carbon fiber built if I can dream.

Adults play games too and I want a show piece next my Onkyo receiver. Unless Silverstone takes the next logical step for this design I'll either go with the Jonsbo U2 with an MSI GTX 760 ITX Gaming Card, or U3 which can barely house a 10.5" card.

By the way, if you omit the Optical drive and HDD, and use the 65W version of the i5 with 1.35v RAM, then you can get away with a GTX 780ti or R9 290x at stock speeds.

Onkyo receiver ??? lol, plastic will suit you just fine...
 
I'm just curious to see HOW one would set up a custom, fully integral water loop in there... I see people doing a single AIO kit for the CPU, but I want to see someone go all out and get both a CPU and GPU block in there properly.

All in all, I'm really digging the internal design of this case a lot, it looks like the Tiki internally (no surprise since Silverstone apparently made that case too) and the ML07 has a similar monolith look. Makes my Prodigy case seem silly but I also managed to fit two push/pull AIO kits and keep my optical drive in that thing as well.

I desperately want to leave the ITX form factor but new cases like this get me excited over them over and over, and I could totally see myself getting my hands cut up on one of these.
 
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Steve did you have an wire management issues with the existing modular cables and the front panel cables. Can any of those cables be pulled underneath the motherboard to help with excess slack and routing? That USB 3 connector seems like a road block to clean cable management. Did you use specialized SATA cables as well as the picture shows some cables that are attached sideways to the connector?
 
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