Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
Consistent with its exterior, the interior of the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air Black TG RGB is also nicely finished with all surfaces painted matte black. To further accentuate its all-black color scheme, the back expansion slot covers and removable drive trays are painted black as well. As mentioned on the previous page, there are no more distinctive interior color options like orange, green, magenta, or cyan. The conventional layout has the power supply and 3.5" hard drive trays mounted at the bottom inside a shroud with the main area allocated for the motherboard. Generally speaking, everything is quite traditional as far as ATX computer cases are concerned. Let us take a closer look at what is going on inside.
The Pop 2 Air is able to accommodate mITX, mATX, and ATX motherboards. The riser mounting holes are labeled for extra convenience regardless of PC building experience. No pre-installed rear exhaust fan is situated around the CPU socket area of a standard ATX motherboard, but the opening can accommodate one 120mm unit. The upper ventilation area is open with an externally removable magnetic dust filter. Three 120mm or two 140mm fans or a radiator of equivalent size can be installed at the top of the case.
As shown in our photo above, we can also spot a large rectangular opening on the motherboard tray for easy aftermarket heatsink backplate installation without removing the motherboard itself from the chassis. The opening is actually large enough to accommodate pretty much anything. I mean, with something this big, unless you have some strange motherboard, it is hard not to get it right. The tallest heatsink you can install is 170mm. The perimeter of the opening is not lined with rubber, but the edges are well rounded off, so you do not need to worry about your cables being stripped accidentally.
The chassis platform is raised about two centimeters off the ground to accommodate PSUs with fans at the bottom, because the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air features a bottom-mounted power supply bay. Should you flip your PSU to have the fan at the top, a ventilation grille is present to keep the air flowing. Inside the Pop 2 Air, metal bumps with rubber toppings at the top elevate the power supply up a further half centimeter just to ensure enough air is made available to your PSU. The power supply will have to be installed directly to the chassis, as there is no removable bracket. The ventilation grille has an externally removable dust filter pre-installed, so you will not need to worry about nasty stuff clogging your fans down the road.
There are two thermal zones inside the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air, even though the shroud separating the main chamber and the power supply chamber is ventilated at the power supply. An air guide routes the intake air generated by the bottom 120mm fan into the main chamber rather than the bottom chamber. Cables can be routed through two openings on the shroud adjacent to your power supply. Other cables can go through the two large openings on the right side of the motherboard tray. No rubber grommets are present on the two motherboard tray openings for cost savings. For unused cables, it can stay underneath the shroud.
Three 3-pin PWM Fractal Design Aspect 12X RGB 120mm fans draw cool air into the system from the front. They are rifle bearing fans rated at 1650 RPM. Unfortunately, they are voltage and not PWM-controlled. The fans can be daisy chained together, so you only need to connect one RGB and one PWM connector to your motherboard or controller. Keep in mind the built-in controller only controls the RGB lighting and not the fan itself. The fans can be swapped for a radiator of equivalent size.
The longest video card you can fit in the Pop 2 Air is 416mm with front fans installed. No graphics card is that long at the time of writing this review, but with the way things are going, I would not be surprised if we get close to this figure in the future.
Here is a look at other side of the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air Black TG RGB. The back of the motherboard tray is quite fundamental to good cabling. This is especially held true with the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air, since it is normal practice to cables through this section. With the latest iteration, the company kept gap wide with room here for two 2.5" SSD installations. The amount of room between the side panel and motherboard tray varies from 23mm directly behind the motherboard to 35mm in the cable routing area. Users will generally not experience problems if you own a power supply with thick cables.
There is an integrated main cabling guide towards the front, where two Velcro straps allow for easy organization in this area. Other than that, lots of openings can be found so you can fish your cables through, and they are reasonably sized to carry everything you need. Unfortunately, there are no rubber grommets are found at any openings as aforementioned, which is a cost-saving measure.
No bottom intake fans or radiators can be installed into the Pop 2 Air. The Pop 2 Air can officially take power supplies up to 180mm long with the HDD tray installed. With no HDD tray installed, you can have a PSU that spans 250mm according to my measurements, maybe even a little bit longer depending on how you bend the cables. If you go further and remove the air guide, you can have a PSU that basically spans the entire length of the case. Of course, this is just a trivial fact, because I do not believe something of such a size exists in the world, haha.
The Pop 2 Air's I/O connector cables are as simple as it gets. In fact, there is only one for the power switch. The power LED is supplied by the RGB LED controller hub, which in turn gets its power from the PSU.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
