My Raven RV03

[law000]

Just a few pics of the Raven.
I use the h80 in push/pull to cool the i7 3960x. Soon I will have an h100i which I will front mount in the 3.5" drive bays, and then use an h75 to cool the Sapphire R9 290

[law000]

As you can see, the Raven is an air cooling case, so water setups, even the AIO coolers are difficult to manage. Add in the eatx means that there is only 1 real 120mm fan mount available. For push pull I had to mount 1 fan outside of the case as luckily the snap on top has enough room. I had to grind down the side a little to get the side panel back on.

[law000]

The Raven case was designed with reference blowers in mind as not to disrupt the airflow. To avoid the GPU creating a hot air feedback loop (sucking in its own hot air), I cut a small piece of perspex to create a ring fenced intake area for the GPU. As the 2x 180 fans on the bottom exhaust to the top, I mounted a 120mm fan at the back to draw in air for the gpu (as well as some of the 180 air)

[law000]

Soon I will be upgrading to h100i for CPU, and using a refence cooler make an AIO bracket for the GPU and exhaust that out of the top. I also have some red braided cables coming to help neating the case, as well as some thermaltake riing fan. Will update soon, esp with the AIO GPU cooler build.

[Mr.Pie]

That perspex is clever nice touch.

I always quite liked the Raven cases, looks like your GPU narrowly squeezes in. What card is it?

[law000]

Its the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X, so one of the longer cards. I have it in the 3rd PCI slot (which is full speed on the RIVE board) to allow more airflow behind it where the hot air will be gathering

[KeyboardDemon]

The Raven case was designed with reference blowers in mind as not to disrupt the airflow. To avoid the GPU creating a hot air feedback loop (sucking in its own hot air), I cut a small piece of perspex to create a ring fenced intake area for the GPU. As the 2x 180 fans on the bottom exhaust to the top, I mounted a 120mm fan at the back to draw in air for the gpu (as well as some of the 180 air)

Does the GPU run cooler with the perspex than it does without it?

Its the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X, so one of the longer cards. I have it in the 3rd PCI slot (which is full speed on the RIVE board) to allow more airflow behind it where the hot air will be gathering

I don't understand the bit about hot air gathering, where could the hot air gather? I thought that case was designed to take advantage of the stack effect, hot air rises and vents at the top of the case to prevent the hot air from building up in pockets with cold intakes blowing straight through from the bottom to help the process.

[law000]

Hi Keyboard Demon,

There are a few things happening in the Raven case as to why I modified it, and will soon be again once I receive my h100i.
The perspex reduced temps only by 2c on the core. The issue with the tri-x is it vents sideways out of the card, the case was designed with reference style coolers in mind, or at least aftermarket with fins open back to front, not side to side. This disturbs the bottom to top airflow. Couple with the h80 in the only exhaust mount, the removal of hot air is not perfect especially in non lab environments.

To show what I mean:


Cold air comes in via the bottom and back for the GPU. The exhaust of the GPU comes out, hits the windowed side of the case creating turbulence in the air flow. The perspex is there to stop a feedback loop of hot air being expelled and then sucked back.
The GPU is getting plenty of fresh air, and the bigger area of air behind the card allows more unobstructed airflow to vent from bottom to top.

[KeyboardDemon]

If I can get some time to do it I might have to experiment with my RV03 to see if different configurations improve my temps, not that I have any issues with temps. I have run the case with all of the case fans not running and it only made a 2 degree difference at idle and I think it was about 3 to 5 degree when loaded, so if your fans were to fail you shouldn't see temps shoot up.

If you don't have an optical drive fitted then you can quite easily remove the drive cages from the front and mount an H100(i) into the space that's left, with push/pull fans and no obstruction into your case.

[law000]

Edit- was typing this while you replied so I may have doubled up on what you said

I should add, if I had an air cooler for the CPU and a good exhaust fan it may not be an issue.

My next plan (although after my holiday) is to forward mount the h100i, exhausting out the front via the mesh panels. At the same time I will AIO the Tri-x, venting out the current top 120 exhaust.
This should create an airflow that goes bottom/back to top/front - I will prob move the GPU back at this point to PCI slot 1. This is sort of what I mean:


My fans (am changing them) will be as follows
IN:
Thermatake Riing (rear 120mm) @1000rpm (LNC) ~26cfm
2x AP181 (bottom 180mm) @ 850rpm (switch on low) ~85cfm each
Total in 196cfm

OUT:
1x SP120L (top 120mm,GPU) @ ~800rpm (quiet mode) ~21cfm
2x SP120L (front 120mm,CPU) @ ~800rpm (quiet mode) ~21cfm
1x Thermatake Riing (right panel behind mobo 120mm) @1000rpm (LNC) ~26cfm
Total out: 89cfm

This keeps it largely a positive pressure case, keeping the stacking method viable and the dust to a minimum, but also moves the 2 biggest heat sources to direct venting outside of the case.

[law000]

Also I have some red LED strips coming ( the one you see is a white strip that I sharpied red ) and red braided cables for the PSU

[Bonebreaker777]

I quite like it. Not sure if I would go for something similar after my minimalistic changes.

[law000]

I quite like it. Not sure if I would go for something similar after my minimalistic changes.

The Raven is a special case IMO. Definitely a marmite case. I was going to swap it out for a Corsair 540 but I just cant bring myself to let it go!

[KeyboardDemon]

That's funny, the Air 540 is a case that's been top of my shortlist for my next build for quite some time now, it's almost spooky. lol

I really like how my small(ish) RV03 does a better job at keeping my components cooler than some of the larger cases I've owned previously, but I do find the case to be too cramped and quite difficult to do anything in. Cable management was not as easy as I would have liked and I am seriously thinking about moving my drives from the back to the front drive bays and getting some braided Sata cables when I do this, just not sure if I should go black or red.

[Bonebreaker777]

'Marmite' case! Hilarious!

[law000]

That's funny, the Air 540 is a case that's been top of my shortlist for my next build for quite some time now, it's almost spooky. lol

I really like how my small(ish) RV03 does a better job at keeping my components cooler than some of the larger cases I've owned previously, but I do find the case to be too cramped and quite difficult to do anything in. Cable management was not as easy as I would have liked and I am seriously thinking about moving my drives from the back to the front drive bays and getting some braided Sata cables when I do this, just not sure if I should go black or red.

The 540 is much like the Raven as it is unconventional. 2 things stopped me from buying it - the footprint is huge compared to the Raven, which meant fitting under the desk means less leg room (unless I put my feet on top of it). Second, although the 540 is awesome for water, I feel that once I have down my water plans the Raven's twin penetrators (giggity) on low will provide fantastic auxiliary cooling at low noise.

Another option I thought was to rivet a ssd caddy in the back of the case just above the bottom fan. Also if you think it's a pain to move things then don't put the hdd I'm the front using the hdd caddys that came with the case - they are awful