Internal Design
Getting inside the Raven RVZ02 is made easy by the two case doors that expose the internal workings from all angles. Inside the RVZ02 appears pretty basic and for the most part it is.
The key to the RVZ02 is its simplistic internal design which makes installation a breeze, something few Mini-ITX gaming cases can claim.
While we would describe the internal design as simple, it's also intelligently thought-out – a clear result of constant refinement. There are some truly ingenious design elements that we will get to shortly.
The right side of the case features the Mini-ITX motherboard tray with a very large cut-out. Often Mini-ITX systems only provide a small cut-out in the motherboard tray and as a result they aren't compatible with a wide range of motherboards.
This rear access to the backside of the motherboard tray has been made even more important with the latest Z170 motherboards, as those from manufacturers such as Asrock also include M.2 slots on the rear side of the board. The large cut-out means that installing M.2 SSDs once the motherboard is installed is still possible, a very important feature indeed.
Adjacent to the motherboard tray is the SFX power supply mounting location, which also supports Silverstone's new SFX-L standard. For those unaware, SFX-L is based on SFX form factor but offers a few key advantages.
Typically SFX power supplies measure 100mm long and are limited to 80mm cooling fans while SFX-L stretches the power supplies to 130mm long allowing a more efficient 120mm fan to be installed.
An example of such a power supply is the Silverstone SX500-LG which measures 130mm long, sports a 120mm fan and is 80 Plus Gold certified.
Up from the power supply we find the slim optical drive slot, though we would opt to remove the optical drive bracket and install a 3.5" hard drive here instead.
Next to the slim optical drive slot are a pair of ingenious 2.5" drive slots. Usually mounting 2.5" SSDs in a compact gaming case is a bit of a chore, but not so with the RVZ02.
The 2.5" drive cages aren't removable from the case, rather they pivot upwards from one end, allowing the user to slide drives into place quickly and without the need for any tools. This design also means that drives can be installed and removed from the RVZ02 without first having to remove any other components that might be in the way.
Spinning the RVZ02 around we find a hollow section at the top of the case designed to house a full length graphics card such as the GeForce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon R9 Fury. Forget the Radeon R9 Nano for this build, the RVZ02 will happily accept a 13" long graphics card, making the Nano pointless here.
As we mentioned earlier, the RVZ02 doesn't support any case fans at all, meaning the internal components must draw in their own cool air. Thankfully the RVZ02 is well setup allowing graphics cards to draw in a great deal of air from outside the case.