Fractal Design Pop Air Review Bye Bye Meshify

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If you need help with products purchased from Micro Center, please contact one of our knowledgeable tech support reps using the online chat button below, or visit our Tech Support page for additional options and helpful information. The reason Fractal Design decided to include its “Extended” radiator brackets is that the Pop Air RGB has only around 40mm of clearance between a 120mm/240mm radiator and a motherboard. The additional brackets provide 12.5mm of extra motherboard clearance horizontally. Indeed, they were completely necessary to clear our test build’s G.Skill TridentZ RGB modules, as you can see in our fleshed-out test build... Cable access holes above and in front of the motherboard feature rolled edges, as does the cooler plate access hole behind the CPU area.

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A stepped-in area in the front access hole allows easier cable passage, but limits motherboard depth to around 11 inches. In a move that appears a nod toward the reintroduction of bay-panel devices, the Pop Air RGB hides dual 5.25-inch external drive bays behind a magnetically attached mini panel, as shown below... We are impressed to see that Fractal Design has packed a host of features into Pop while keeping the cost low.

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With their Define range you get a number of options included at a fairly high price. By contrast Pop relies on optional accessories such as extra drive mounts and USB Type-C for the front I/O panel to keep the price low. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.

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This system allows us to produce a substantial amount of heat and effectively test the Fractal Design Pop Air‘s cooling capabilities. PCMag supports Group Black and its mission to increase greater diversity in media voices and media ownerships. Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.

In fact, they’re right beside the premium-market O11 Dynamic EVO from Lian Li. Builders who would rather use the case’s RGB controller will find an ARGB header on the underside of the switch panel... If an item you have purchased from us is not working as expected, please visit one of our in-store Knowledge Experts for free help, where they can solve your problem or even exchange the item for a product that better suits your needs. To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an Intel Core i K processor, RX 6800XT graphics and an SSD.

All outputs are designed only to enable daisy-chaining of these devices, with the original connection leading to a motherboard header. A separate drive tray on the back of the motherboard tray supports an additional pair of 2.5-inch devices. Users are free to move this part to the top of the power-supply tunnel if desired, and Fractal Design says that it will make spares available to those who wish to equip their cases with additional drives. While a look back at past components reveals that manufacturers have placed everything from fan controllers to multi-drive backplanes into spots like these, Fractal Design adds a screw tray to one of its 5.25-inch bays. The top panel features a mesh panel with magnetic tape on its periphery covering a dual fan mount that, like the front panel, supports two fans of 120mm or 140mm sizes.

Fractal Design Pop Air Case Review - eTeknix

Fractal Design Pop Air Case Review.

Posted: Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:00:50 GMT [source]

The Verdict: Colors and Bays (Not Performance) Are the Tops of This Pop

It also has separate microphone and headphone jacks, a power button, and a tiny mode button for its built-in ARGB controller. The Pop Air's combination of steel, glass and plastic panels weighs in at around 16.5 pounds. A quick look around the box shows that it’s designed to please the mainstream segment of the gaming PC case market. Seven slot covers and vents all over the back are common fare, as is the 120mm exhaust fan, the dual-pattern power-supply mount, and the slide-out power-supply dust filter. Whichever path you choose, Pop Series will provide you with a solid build, a straight-forward layout, and will serve as a stylish addition to your desk space.

Free assistance is available for the first 60 days on new purchases, excluding internal hardware installations or networking support. For new PowerSpec computers, this free assistance is extended to one year from the date of purchase. VR Headsets and Headphones (including AirPods, Earbuds, and Over-the-Ear products) are only eligible for return if deemed defective. Fractal Design has launched a range of cases named Pop that stretch from the mATX Pop Mini, through this ATX Pop and onwards to the EATX  Pop XL. One of the nicer things that we can say about the CPU temperatures we measured (after mounting our platform into the Pop Air RGB) is that they’re only a few degrees worse than average.

Since space is very tight around the top panel’s 140mm fan mounts, Fractal Design recommends using nothing larger than a dual-120mm (aka 240mm) radiator here. Pop Mini Air melds precision engineering with dynamic design, while saving desk space with its smaller footprint. The cooling performance of Fractal Design's new Pop Air was pretty much exactly what we expected.

The chassis is a compact mid-tower ATX with reasonable air flow through the various panels and no obvious problems, but it lacks the volume that is typically required for really good airflow. Having said that we battered the Pop Air with a heavy combination of CPU and GPU workloads and it survived so if you dial back the hardware to sub-Core i9 we are confident the Pop Air will do a fine job for you. Pop XL Air melds precision engineering with dynamic design, while offering the space and flexibility of its generous format. The Pop Air front panel supports stock 120mm (RGB) or optional 140mm fans, and has space at the top and bottom to fit the end caps of a so-called “280mm” radiator (technically, of up to 330mm total length). A closer look at the front of the top panel shows that the Type-C connector hole is filled with a blank cover; this mainstream-priced model has only Type-A ports.

In sum, all this isn’t an argument of poor performance, by any means, but rather that the case doesn't distinguish itself for doing especially well on our thermal and acoustic trials. Graphics card temperatures are an oddity for the Pop Air RGB, as they start off normally cool and gradually scale past all others in this test set. This likely means that the case is collecting heat in our tested configuration, but a quick test with a piece of paper showed that all of the fans were flowing correctly.