Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means, with the use of spacers and screws. There is, as you can see, plenty of space for long graphics cards, and 120 mm tower coolers will easily fit as well. However, the layout may make getting to the CPU power plugs a bit trickier than usual. Look closely and you will see that I spent some time cleaning out all the cables, including those of the two fans and all cable leads, which lead to a spiffy first result.


As mentioned before, the 3.5" hard drives do not require any tools or additional parts. Simply slide them into the cage. They will fit perfectly, with their connectors facing away from the main side panel as an additional benefit.


The 2.5" SSD on the backside of the motherboard tray requires two traditional screws, as one side is held in place by metal pins. You have to install the drive with its connectors facing toward the bottom as it is situated as far up as possible. While you do have a second such mounting spot to the right of the ODD tray, putting an SSD there would make cable management a lot more difficult. There is enough space to the right of the drive to add another such mounting possibility, which would have been a far more appropriate spot.


To add an optical drive to the RV05, remove the tray first. This tray can be put back once the slimline, slot-loading unit has been put into place - just make sure to screw it back on properly.


Installing a power supply does not bear any surprises as it is done by the usual means. You just have to keep an eye on the unit's length, but length should only become an issue with extremely long, very powerful PSUs.


With everything in place, the Raven RV05 sports a very clean interior when looked at from the main side as the cable mess has been routed behind the motherboard tray, but I had to get pretty creative about the way in which I secured the leads as there are only a few hooks for cable ties on the tray itself.

Finished Looks

Once turned on, the V-shaped power LED lights up, which does look pretty nice. You can clearly see the CPU cooler and one end of the graphics card through the window, which is sized well as it hides any hard drives you may have installed. The layout rotated by 90°, the power cable now connects to the PSU near the top. I, as you can see, also placed the magnetic dust filter on the vent to protect the power supply from grime and dirt. It is washable and holds in place quite well, but you may still want to take it off before moving the chassis as there is always a small risk of loosing it in the process.


Looking at the top, the cover hides all the ugly cables quite nicely while giving you all the accessing points you need, once removed.