This review is for the model RVZ02B-W, which I bought right here on Amazon.
I've always liked Silverstone cases for their quality and innovation, and this case does not disappoint. I have owned Fortress FT03 & FT03-Mini as well as the first RVZ01. This case is my favorite by far because it ended up offering the best balance between size, power, cooling, and noise; so much so I decided to write a review for it so others can also benefit from my experience. Did I mention it also looks 100 times cooler in person?
My PC:
Silverstone RVZ02B-W
Gigabyte Z170N ITX Motherboard
i5-6500 CPU
Noctua Low Profile Cooler NH-L9I (With Cooler Master Blade 92 PWM Fan)
8GB DDR4 RAM (Geil Super Luce, Glows Red, Newegg)
Asus GTX970 Mini (Upgrading Soon To GTX1070)
Corsair SF600 SFX PSU
1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD (OS)
2TB WD 7200 RPM 2.5'' HDD (Data)
Samsung Slim Optical Drive SN-208FB/BEBE
Windows 10
Important note: My ITX builds in the past always got scrapped because of one thing: the noise. So this build was successful thankfully for the newly released Corsair SF600 SFX PSU. In the past I have used Silverstone's (and other brand's) SFX PSUs but they were always so noisy (I have not tried the SFX-L version). Personally I prefer my PC to be nearly dead silent when on idle, and this PSU delivered as promised: no coil whining, no noise, period. Without this PSU I think I would have ended up skipping this case as well. Also, I dislike liquid cooling because of the pump noises (yes that bothers me) so instead I went for the highly praised Noctua low profile cooler but opted to change the included fan for a thicker, black colored alternative from Cooler Master, which fitted just fine in this case and still left about half inch of clearing from the side panel.
I built this PC for 1080P, 60fps gaming and I wanted it to be quiet when I'm not gaming. Mission accomplished.
The case itself consists of metal & plastic and feels solid when handling. I won't get into the specifications and details since there are many websites who've already done a wonderful job of it. What I will say is this case allowed me to cram so many powerful components into it without being too much larger than a Xbox One. Also, the Noctua heatsink with the Cooler Master 92mm pwm fan combo kept my i5-6500 at a nice 30C idle and 55C load. On the reverse side, my Asus GTX970 Mini stayed around 28C idle and 60C-75C load, depending on the game (averages 70C for Fallout 4 @1080P with Ultra settings). This is in a room with temperature of about 70F. A few minutes into gaming the CPU, GPU, and PSU fans all kick in with a moderate (but very bearable) noise level and can very easily be ignored/covered up by game sounds. Overall I'd say the noise was no louder than my old first generation Asus G750 17'' laptop during load.
Appearance wise, the windows in the photos are whiter than they appear in real life. So if your room isn't lit by bright florescent bulbs, chances are the case windows will look much more transparent in person. The windows also sit flush with the side panel, which was another reason I chose this version over the standard all black version. The orange triangle LED gives the slim case some character when viewed head on; and my Gigabyte motherboard had onboard audio panel LEDs (red), which gave the left side window (ironically) some modest glow while my right side window was decorated by the slow-pulsing LEDs (also red) from aforementioned RAM. So in a low light environment (as any respectable gamer would have) the completed build looks like a living, breathing (thanks to the RAM) sophisticated gaming machine.
The build itself: EASY. Much, much more so than all my other ITX builds (including Cougar QBX, Corsair 380T, Azza CSAZ-103, ASRock M8, and Silverstone FT03-Mini) and even easier than many larger desktops thanks to the inverted GPU placement made possible via two GPU PCI adapters (included). Since I used a SFX (as opposed to a SFX-L PSU) there was also extra room next to the PSU for me to neatly bundle the cables.
The only area I could offer improvement is to include dust filters since all of the openings on the case are quite large. But then again when I thought about it some more this way also made sense because while the openings made dust easy to get in, it's also easy for them to get out. And opening the case up once half a year or so and going through it with a can of air doesn't seem like that much of a chore since I can kill two birds with one stone and make sure all my components are still in operational condition while I'm at it. Nevertheless, it's been almost 1 month since I've built this and I still don't see any dust buildup inside.
And that concludes my 2 cents on this case. The total for my build came out to around $1500, which I thought was reasonable given what it can do. Everybody needs a PC these days anyways, and I figure I'd just go a little further and make the PC powerful enough, small enough, and quiet enough to replace my game counsels with the aid of a Xbox 360 controller. If you consider the size of Xbox One plus the power brick, this case isn't that much larger, yet the games run smoother, quieter, and looks better.
100% Recommended.
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
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