Silverstone presents The Raven case

soooo, the ports are on the top? Isn't that gonna be kinda messy?

Definitely ghastly.

They've 'reinvented the case as we know it' by turning the board 90 degrees? What about Lian Li cases that turn it 180 degrees? What have they done?

No, really, a case that looks like a tank and gives me an unfamiliar layout I have no use for, no thanks. I'll stick to my Lian Li. It's aluminium, doesn't weigh a ton and doesn't have the ugly prebuilt grey look inside it. Really, there's something about that grey color and the way the components in the cases look that remind me of 'old' cases.

Having the gfx venting out the top makes sense but unless the case is well out the way it will look fairly untidy. Would this not be better with repeaters, connect everything internally and have duplicate ports on the case, it works in my head. A mod for the future perhaps,

What we need is a case producer to be truly radical, i propose turning the mother board 360deg, the cables coming from the back will be truly neat!

I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident that case killed my appetite.

I want to know what the sales figures are like after a month..

i find it nice....

Interesting idea but ugly, ugly, ugly...

Ugh, it looks worse than mine.
And mines only a Asus TA-210 Black tower.

This makes me glad I like minimalist styling.

aaargh door

The idea of the motherboard placement is good but the way it is executed here is horrible. The case looks more like a stealth bomber and the colour.......the colour!!!!!!!

I stay with the minimal lines of older Silverstone and LL cases.

Not so sure about the design...
Wouldn't mounting it that way round screw up the heatpipes on the motherboard?

looks ugly as sin although the layout is pretty good imo

No! Say it isn't so....please, Joe! :) In all seriousness, I just don't see where they're going with this design idea. Just IMHO, though. I prefer the "classic" designs myself, like the older Tenjin series or even when some of them designed the Cooler Master Praetorian series before they were Silverstone. Ah, well. Moving along.

hideous, at first glance i could have sworn the construction involved duct tape.

externally yes its hideous but internally its a master peice the Gpu and Mobo power wires are resonably tidy no sign of hdd wires (they go round the back to a docking bay would have been better to only require 1 or 2 molexs for this but nevermind)

I think this is quite an interesting idea to be honest. It's most certainly not something I would buy, but it's always cool to see manufacturers trying something never really done before, just to see what happens.

The main thing that really springs to mind is the ports coming out the top of the case. I mean - there looks like there's room for a bit of ducting there to keep things tidy, but name one time you've managed to get a DVI or VGA connector to bend at a nice tight 90 degrees angle? And if you look at even Lian-Li cases, most of them are now going back to the old "CPU at the top" paradigm, as Motherboard, HSF and Graphics Card vendors have designed their products to work best this way up.

However - as a bit of a side note - one thing would make this idea really really good. If they had a nice little "Patch Bay" inside, that routes external ports into the inside of the case, and into the motherboard external ports, that would be really quite nice. After all, it's the same paradigm as network or sound engineering patch bays - leave the MoBo plugged in, and a cheap external panel is used to plug in / un plug monitors, speakers, USB etc - that way its just a cheap port that gets metal fatigue or snapped off, not a part on a £200 motherboard...

Aaaanyway, if it wasn't for the motherboard laying drunkenly on its side, I think this would be quite cool - I like the idea of the PSU being inset in the bottom cavity, that's actually quite nice!

oh thats not good looking at all. Different strokes for different folks i guess....

ough! That thing makes my eyes bleed.

i like it. not that much... (i have TJ06), but still ok. and would love to try the new layout.

Did anyone notice that there are NO cables whatsoever connected to the top ports on those photos?

Originally Posted by antiHero
The idea of the motherboard placement is good but the way it is executed here is horrible. The case looks more like a stealth bomber and the colour.......the colour!!!!!!!

I stay with the minimal lines of older Silverstone and LL cases.

It has potential but I must agree.

Originally Posted by Tris
hideous, at first glance i could have sworn the construction involved duct tape.

Originally Posted by yakyb
externally yes its hideous but internally its a master peice the Gpu and Mobo power wires are resonably tidy no sign of hdd wires (they go round the back to a docking bay would have been better to only require 1 or 2 molexs for this but nevermind)

It does indeed have some advantages. I like the concept just not the implementation.

Originally Posted by chicorasia
Did anyone notice that there are NO cables whatsoever connected to the top ports on those photos?

http://images.bit-tech.net/news_images/2008/06/silverstone-presents-the-raven-case/rav3.jpg I see 2 at the top back. I imagine there is a door on top with a cable chase below that

I've thought of making such a case - but with a minimalist look (the look isn't to my taste either but I wonder what a good modder could do with it). The biggest problem I saw was that the cable chase at the top would require too much space for the cables to bend (effectively making the case bigger) and in some situations may require longer cables.

too much plastic. It looks like they were trying for a Reventon look, and took the cheap route. The flipped mobo is interesting, though unless they provide some 90 degree adaptors for DVI/USB its gonna be ungainly to route the wires out the back.

okay so why is this called the Raven? What in its design would have it be given such a name?

So this is like taking the BTX idea but implementing it for AT? Interesting but routing those cables I think would become a pain in the ass.

Looks like a stealth fighter jet. Lame name and I don't really like the external looks of it, but the funky internal design seems interesting enough.

What's taking so long with the first review?! ;)

it makes sense cooling wise, by rotating the motherboard the hot components are no longer stacked and heat can easily vented up and out by fans or just plain ol' convection but but doesn't override but in the end that case is just damn ugly

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@tile

well then if you do not like it then do not buy it or build your own

in http://images.bit-tech.net/news_images/2008/06/silverstone-presents-the-raven-case/rav3.jpg looks like there's also a pci bracket and mounting holes for mounting the motherboard 180 from where it is.. interesting design

Hmmm, interesting. I'm not that big on it, but I am glad someone is looking beyond the same stale ATX design. I would rather have the "back" of the motherboard in the front behind a door with a cableway to the back so plugging stuff in didn't involve getting at the back of the case. My dream case would be a double width one with the drives on the left and the mobo on the right with the ports facing the front, but set back 4 inches or so and behind a door.

Using natural convection only works if the case is very open. which brings us to two problems:

Before abandoning the idea of making a watercooled case (due to going to LAN's i didn't want to lug the case around) i toyed with this layout. albeit the board was turned -90°

idea, cables out the bottom, the entire top is the radiator. The entige case works as a chimney, cold air comes in the bottom, warm air rises and goes out the top.
Combine with a LARGE radiator (entire casetop and some big fans, that only turn on at certain temperatures) and you've got a very quiet case.

Problem 1: Most cables are too short for this. and you get an annoying lot of cables on the bottom.
Problem 2: the case needs to be very open, so you get dustproblems and hear the harddrives.

For this case: as the cables aro out the top, they should be long enough, but ugly. so they added a cablecanal. which disturbs natural convection.

Good to see someone question ATX though.

Still don't understand why the hot part of the graphicscard is usually th lower side though ;-)

Originally Posted by HourBeforeDawn
okay so why is this called the Raven?

Because Blackbird was already taken. :D

Masterp posted a video overview of the new Raven case yesterday ;)

GWcq0w3xGdE

sweet, it actually looks pretty moddable, cant wait to get my hands on ^__^

i don't really mind it. and i hate most of those styles cases (i mean you, thermaltake!)

Originally Posted by HourBeforeDawn
sweet, it actually looks pretty moddable, cant wait to get my hands on ^__^

You're getting one HBD?