Silverstone raven rvz03

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB is a new box for ITX boards that is different from what we are used to, hence our interest in it. With a space distribution very studied for super compact configurations, without giving up space for large graphics cards and a striking A-RGB lighting section on its front. If you are looking for a flat chassis with good capacity, perhaps this could be a great option.

We invite you to see this complete review with assembly included to see all its possibilities. But before, we take the opportunity to thank Silverstone for having trusted us to give us their product and to be able to do our review.

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB technical characteristics

Unboxing

Well, we start this new review and we cannot ignore the Unboxing procedure, mainly to see what accessories we have next to this Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB box.

The chassis comes in a fully painted box in very striking colors based on shades of purple and pink. On the narrow side we have the make and model of the tower and some other information about the product. Perhaps the most peculiar thing is that to be a chassis the box opens at the widest face, in order to be able to remove it more easily. This is tucked inside a black textile bag and with two polystyrene cork molds.

Now let's look at the elements that make up the bundle, because we have quite a few things:

• 4x soft rubber feet for vertical placement 4x hard rubber feet for horizontal placement 2x graphics card holders 3x fine-grained dust filters PCIe extender for graphics card and support rubber pads Screw set for installation 2x multiplier cables for fans RGB cable header for board Microcontroller power cable Logo to stick

The funny thing is that we have no trace of the instruction manual in the accessory box, and the truth is that in this chassis it will be necessary for us to know perfectly how to install the hardware. In any case, we can download it from the product's website.

Exterior design

After removing all the elements in an orderly way, let's see what it can offer us in terms of appearance and construction of this Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB.

And the first and perhaps most important is its size, because it is a differential aspect with respect to typical ATX chassis. We have measures of 382 mm long, 364 mm deep and only 105 mm wide. As you can see, the length and height measurements are quite normal, around what a Micro-ATX chassis measures, but it is much more narrow, let's say, in the style of MSI Trident desktops.

For its construction , metal has been used for the outer plates and inner chassis and a hard plastic casing to embellish its front, top and bottom. As for lines and design, we see that, except for the front, it is quite basic and without glass elements. It will also be interesting to be able to place this chassis horizontally or vertically, just by placing the respective legs for each case.

We begin to see in detail the faces of the Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB, which we will certainly end soon with them. In this image we see the left side face, in which we only see a large metal panel with a round ventilation opening. In it, we have a 120mm fan pre-installed. In this opening, we can install one of the dust filters that we have as an accessory.

If we go to the other side area we find not only one, but three openings for ventilation. The one located at the top, will be responsible for allowing air suction for the power supply, which will be installed in this area. Does not support filter installation.

In the lower area we have two other extra holes for 120 mm fans, where one of them is pre-installed. Here we can install the other two available dust filters. In general, these areas do not stand out for their beauty, but that is not the objective either, and we value good ventilation more.

Now we move to what we understand as the upper and lower area, although everything will depend on whether we place the chassis vertically or horizontally. The thing is that Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB has two smooth plastic housings with a simulated brushed metal finish.

In the lateral areas of each of the casings we have numerous openings to allow hot air to be expelled from the interior. This will be quite interesting for the vicinity where the motherboard and power supply is.

The front area is also made of hard plastic, although in this case we do have a central band with "Y" terminations that will show us aggressive addressable RGB lighting. In this part we do not have elements for air absorption, but we do have the port panel, which will be the one we will now see:

• 2x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports 3.5mm jack for microphone 3.5mm jack for audio Power button Control button LED Power indicator LED

The panel is simply correct, well placed and with sufficient connectivity.

We finish with the rear area, where it is perfectly clear how narrow it is compared to the ATX chassis. At the top we have the hole to place the motherboard, while the back has a space for two expansion slots, where the graphics card or another PCIe card will be installed. Note also that we have here the power connector already pre-installed, since the source will not be visible from the outside.

Interior and assembly

Now we are going to see everything that concerns the interior of the Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB chassis, which will be quite important for users who want to purchase the chassis.

The configuration that we see on the screen consists of a small upper space where we will place the motherboard on the right, and the power supply on the right. We have compatibility with Mini-DTX and Mini-ITX boards using four screws. Regarding the source, we can install ATX formats without problem, although we must ensure that they are less than 150 mm long, although it is recommended that they be less than 140 mm, to leave space for cables.

In the lower area we have another large compartment that we now see covered, but that will be where the graphics card and storage options are installed. In such a case, we will have enough space to install CPU coolers up to 83mm high, and graphics cards up to 330mm long, and in principle, there would be no problem for thicknesses up to 2.5 slot, but not 3 slots, watch this.

A peculiarity of the GPU cover is that it integrates the PCIe x16 connector that will directly connect to the motherboard and will move the slot vertically for the graphics card. It is important to make it clear that the GPU cover is completely removable, and is made of hard plastic and metal elements for the clamping slot area. During the assembly process, we will see how to do this.

Storage capacity

When it comes to storage possibilities, this Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB doesn't have too many due to limited space available. And here we see a disadvantage that must be considered, and that is that we do not have space to install 3.5-inch units. We agree that less and less are used, but there are users who have HDDs who would like to reuse, and here it will not be possible.

On the other hand, we have the capacity to install up to three 2.5-inch units. In fact, these three holes are located in the GPU compartment and well visible by the user. Two of the holes are designed to install SSD and one for HDD or SSD.

Refrigeration

Now it's time to see what options we have in terms of refrigeration is concerned, although we will also finish the section quite quickly.

Starting with the fan configuration, we have:

• Left side: 1x 120 mm Right side: 2x 120 mm

As we have already seen, we have two 120 mm fans pre-installed, in the absence of a free space that we can fill ourselves. These two fans have a curved fin configuration to increase efficiency, offering a maximum 1500 rpm at 18 dBA.

In the bundle we have a couple of hub cables to connect in one case, two fans and in another, three fans with PWM control. If we prefer, we can connect them directly to the board, although ITX sizes do not usually bring many fan headers.

In regards to liquid cooling we have:

• Left side area: 1x 120mm

Silverstone recommends its AIO TD03-SLIM to place in the left panel. Regarding the other double fan area, it is possible to place 240 mm radiators, although for reasons of space and obviously the length of the refrigerant pipes we will not be able to do so almost completely safely.

We also recommend uninstalling the fans and installing the dust filters for the two or three fans ourselves. In fact, we also recommend installing a second fan in the lower area, filling the three available holes. Thus we can have greater internal cooling with three fans by air, and evacuating all of it from the upper area.

illumination

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB features an addressable RGB lighting system that is managed by an integrated controller, which is placed on the cover of the graphics card. This microcontroller supports a total of 6 lighting strips, although we only have one of them connected, the one on the front.

We must remember that in the bundle we have the MOLEX type connector to supply power to the controller, since otherwise it would not be possible to light these LEDs and we would have a useless system. We believe that, in the absence of an instruction manual, the manufacturer could have already left this power supply pre-connected for somewhat confused users.

But in addition to this, a 4-pin RGB header has been included to connect the controller directly to the motherboard, thus bridging and being able to synchronize with the technologies of the main manufacturers: Asus AURA Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light and ASRock Polychrome RGB.

Hardware installation and mounting

After having seen the inside of the chassis, it is time to start placing our components inside it. In this case we will use the following:

• MSI mini ITX motherboard with AMD Athlon 240GE and 16 GB of RAM AMD Radeon RX 5700 XTPSU Corsair SFX format graphics card

Now two important elements that are worth seeing more in detail regarding their installation. These are the graphics card and the power supply.

Power supply installation

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB certainly supports ATX size font up to 140mm, although ours did not fit, so we have used a smaller SFX size one. That said, what we will have to do to be able to install the PSU, is to remove the metal box that is fastened with 4 screws to the upper right area.

After this, we can see how in its upper area are the four corresponding holes to install the front of the fountain. I hope you can see in the previous photo how in our case we have used the adapter that includes the SFX source to be able to install it in ATX holes.

After installing it, it will be essential to leave the source button in the on position and connect the 3-pin power cable that serves as an extension to the back. After doing this, it will be time to return the metal box to its initial position. We will already have the font installed.

As in our case it is a modular source, we will leave the laying of cables for last, when we already have all the hardware installed, since in this way we can work more comfortably.

Graphics card installation

The second important element is the graphics card, for which the entire plastic and metal cover that occupies part of the main compartment must be removed. And it is not only for this, since it will be strictly necessary to remove it in order to install the motherboard.

This cover not only has the double slot to install the card to the chassis, but also includes a PCIe x16 extension cable that connects directly to the board and makes a 90 degree turn to connect the GPU vertically.

We will need an adapter that is available in the accessory box to further lengthen the slot and to properly connect the graphics card. Let's say it's like a kind of fixed riser cable with two available extension positions.

After connecting the GPU, be sure to screw it to their respective slots, and if we want, we can place the pair of fixers available in to better install the GPU. In our case we have a fairly large one, almost 300 mm long and a considerable weight, so it would be a good idea to do so.

And well, finally we are going to take the PCIe power cables and we are going to connect the ones we need, making sure that they stay in a correct position so as not to hinder the final result. Similarly, connect everything you need in the lighting controller and remove the headers from the F-Panel, because it is time to put this cover in place.

eye! do not forget the plate, which we must still install before installing the cover. A board in which our case is ITX with a single PCIe slot. There should be no problem connecting the PCIe, at least we haven't had any.

After leaving everything screwed and ready, we put the cables of the PSU, and this should be the result, with more or less cables. In general, it has been a tedious installation, we cannot deny it, but simple, very different from the rest of the chassis, and needing to remove and put some structural elements that make us take longer than normal.

As for the cable management, it is just, and it will be limited to the space we have between the PSU and the cover, although we can also put part of them underneath, but making sure that they do not hinder the cooling of the graphics card. For this reason we recommend having a better SFX font than ATX, since we are going to avoid space problems.

Final score

We finish the assembly of this Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB by connecting the equipment and turning on its front lighting section, which is quite striking, whether we place it horizontally or vertically. We have a lot of lighting effects by pressing the button on the I / O panel.

Final words and conclusion about Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB

We come to the end of this in-depth analysis, where we have seen this Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB chassis in great detail, both in front and inside and mounting.

If there is anything we can highlight about it, it is how extremely compact it is, since it is not common to find a chassis of these characteristics on the market that is not commissioned by large companies. We have a thickness of only 105 mm and the possibility of placing it horizontally and vertically. With a front that full of A-RGB lighting with microcontroller and compatible with technologies of plate manufacturers.

Space management we can say that it is acceptably good with almost independent compartment for PSU, GPU and motherboard and in the end, a fairly simple installation process after reading the instructions a bit, although somewhat tedious. Perhaps too much space has been left for the graphics, good because it supports up to 330 mm, but bad for limiting the space for cables if we have PSU ATX.

We also recommend our article on the best chassis of the moment

As far as cooling is concerned, three available holes with two pre-installed 120mm fans is not bad, but already put, including the third fan would have been a detail. In addition, they include filters, and in general it is a silent system and with good performance.

Board support is limited to ITX and DTX as normal, but we also recommend installing SFX fonts and a third fan to complete the setup, the GPU will greatly appreciate it.

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB will have it available for an approximate price of between 100.95 and 119.99 euros depending on where we look (today). The truth is that we expected it a little cheaper, due to its general characteristics. Recommended for users who have little space on their desk and want to go a little further than the typical Micro-ATX towers.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DISTRIBUTION OF PRETTY GOOD SPACE	- DOES NOT SUPPORT 3.5 INCH HDD
+ SUPPORTS LARGE SIZE GPU and ATX PSU	- WE RECOMMEND PSU IN SFX FORMAT
+ HAS A-RGB LIGHTING	- RIGHT SPACE FOR CABLES
+ BASIC DESIGN BUT ELEGANT AND FUNCTIONAL
+ SUPPORTS UP TO 3 FANS AND 3 2.5 ”DISCS

The professional review team awards him the silver medal:

Silverstone RAVEN RVZ03-ARGB

DESIGN - 79%

MATERIALS - 82%

WIRING MANAGEMENT - 75%

PRICE - 80%

79%