CES 2009 - Cases, Coolers, and Power Supplies
by Christoph Katzer on January 14, 2009 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Silverstone
Silverstone was one of the companies showing their products on the show floor, and one of the most interesting offerings is the Raven chassis. It's not actually new since the company has showed it before, but the good news is that it will be available very soon. The concept is very nice and definitely something new to the market. Silverstone turned the whole motherboard 90° to the front and now the side with the I/O ports actually faces up.
The chassis comes in a futuristic design that isn't really to our taste but there will almost certainly be people that love it. The front door slides down to provide access to the optical devices. All of the switches and USB ports are on the top, so if you have this chassis standing on the floor beside you there will be no problem reaching them. If you look at the back the appearance is kind of odd, since there are no graphics cards jacks anymore, no USB ports, and so on. Only the power supply sits in the same old position at the bottom of the case.
When you look inside, things really look different. The positive to this layout is you will not need very long cables on the power supply anymore even with a bottom-mounted PSU. Cables with a length of up to 40cm will be sufficient for PCI-E and the ATX main connectors. The hard drives sit on the right side, lined up vertically. There are definitely positive aspects of this concept, but there are negatives as well. Silverstone has a cover for the top connectors (i.e. the monitor and other devices) but it still looks rather odd. We will withhold any final judgment until we can test the chassis in a real-world setup.
We haven't seen many new products in the power supply and chassis field from Silverstone, but did show some cool FT01 cases with nice paintjobs.
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pastyface - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
I'm not a huge fan of the styling of the new case but I sure do like the effort you have put into the cable management system.strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
err, Mini-Skeleton. Looks a lot smaller than the regular one. Does it fit uATX boards, or only mini-ITX or something proprietary?Christoph Katzer - Thursday, January 15, 2009 - link
Only Mini-ITXgomakeit - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
The white color for the air ducts on the sides look weird. I'd prefer a plain black color. But then again it might be just some prototype mold. And how about adding some sound dampening materials on the sides (since they already put that much thought to noise)?Ryun - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
I question the efficiency of such large case fans mounted on the top of cases nowadays but if you're going to add the 200mm fan -please- add some protection from the environment. I own the Antec 900 and there are a number of different small, metal objects or liquids that could potentially fall into the case and do damage. If you could add something like the optional "spoiler" on the P182 (but without the mesh) that could act as a cover to still allow airflow to be routed out of the case that would be superb.I would also say to get rid of those plastic handles on the top and bottom of the case; they look kinda cheesy.
Lastly I would personally like a window, but I know others don't like them so that's not really too important. Looks pretty cool overall excluding my issues with the case.
Also, when's the P183 supposed to release?
pizan - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
The OCZ case just looks like a Thermaltake re-brand. Xaser VI anyone?tayhimself - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
A whole lot of ugly being sold at CESstrikeback03 - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
I vote that the next decent camera reviewed be sent to Christoph for use after the review is finished. The output of whatever he is using looks similar to my brother's HP from 2002.Was that a passive cooler for i7 in the Silverstone case there?
Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
I know. Wanted something handy and that cam served me well in daylight. Didnt know it would end up like that on products. It's a DSC-T70 btw...strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - link
Wow, that is a modern camera too. Back to the drawing board, Sony.