Fractal Design\u2019s Pop 2 Air refines the Pop formula into a clean, quiet, and highly flexible midtower. Only a minor connectivity misstep keeps it from top-tier status.<\/b>
\nBringing back external drive bays was the headline hook of Fractal Design\u2019s original Pop Air in 2022, but that novelty has aged. Few builders likely ever used its 5.25-inch bays, and in the years since, competitors have pushed airflow-focused designs ever further. With the Pop 2 Air PC case, Fractal Design drops the drive-bay gimmick and leans fully into ventilation, structural refinement, and build flexibility. The $99.99 Pop 2 Air (specifically, the tempered-glass „TG RGB“ version tested here) reframes the Pop series as a straightforward, airflow-first midtower, trading nostalgia for more fans, stronger panels, and a roomier, more modern interior. It’s a solid, if not spectacular, pick if you are keen on Fractal Design’s distinct, clean look.Design: Push More Air!
Fractal Design didn\u2019t just add another fan mount to the Pop 2 Air where the original Pop Air had a pair of drive bays: It also added a third fan mount to its top panel. Even the top panel’s vent has been upgraded, with perforated sheet metal of similar thickness to its other panels. That takes the place of the weak mesh screen that covered the smaller two-fan top vent of the original version.
The Pop Air 2 is also available in black for the same $99 price as our white sample. As noted, our review unit is the TG RGB, which has RGB fans; you can get the case without RGB for $10 less. As for the „TG“ part? The non-RGB black version is available with or without a tempered-glass side, for the same $89 price.
A closeup of the top panel’s ports gets us a look at the perforated top fan cover, which is the same thickness as the side panel. It’s stuck on with the same kind of magnetic strips as the screen that covered the original Pop Air.
The ports are also carried over from the original, which is a ding on this case. That’s because the USB-port design forces PC builders to live with a 5Gbps maximum speed on the Type-C port, since that port shares a 19-pin USB 3 connector with the Type-A port. (Most modern cases use a separate Type-E 10Gbps connection for any Type-C ports.) We also see a headset combo jack, a pair of mode buttons for the integrated RGB controller, and an RGB-backlit power button.
The Pop 2 Air has but one dust filter, and it\u2019s only big enough to cover the air inlet for the power supply. That makes the mesh filter over the front panel the case\u2019s main intake charge, for better or worse.
A pattern of vents adjacent to the motherboard I\/O panel is designed to accept a rear fan at various distances above the graphics card or below the top panel, depending on where you\u2019re trying to gain more clearance. The PCI Express expansion slot panel below it can hold up to seven cards or multi-slot cards without obstruction, since there aren\u2019t any metal bridges between the slots.
The right side panel is solid (non-perforated) sheet steel. Pulling off the panels, we find mounting pins for two 2.5-inch drives behind the motherboard tray, an ARGB controller integrated with the port connectors, a dual-pattern radiator mount pressed into the top panel, a removable 3.5-inch drive cage inside the power supply tunnel, and a card-tab access hole that allays any concerns about angling a graphics card into place by being a full 30mm high.
The top panel can hold radiators at least 408mm long (or a bit more, if you can get the ends to clear various obstructions near the top edges of the front and rear panels), but it\u2019s only around 30mm above the motherboard. A horizontal distance of around 52mm between the motherboard surface and any 120mm-wide cooling components should allow most 360mm-format radiator\/fan sets to clear most memory modules, but we\u2019d be warier of 140mm-wide units.
The case’s included ARGB controller does not offer a passive mode, so builders are forced to choose between it and whatever other ARGB controllers their system has. (There\u2019s usually one on modern motherboards.) It has two buttons that cycle through four lighting patterns and six colors for a combination of 24 possible effects.
As for mounting SSDs and hard drives, plastic push pins secure two 2.5-inch drives up top, while the 3.5-inch drive bay on the bottom secures that hard drive via four shoulder screws on silicon grommets. The lower tray can also hold a third 2.5-inch drive, but without the benefit of damping grommets.
Then there’s the fans. The three specially designed Fractal Design ARGB fans have extended rings on the frames that protrude through corresponding holes on the Pop 2 Air\u2019s front panel and fascia. Though standard fans will fit here too, the extra space between fan frames (around 2mm) makes radiator installation a little less certain.
With the Pop 2 Air, you might not have even thought that a front radiator would be an option, given its curved lower duct, visible below, that\u2019s designed to direct the lower fan\u2019s air up toward your installed graphics card. But we immediately noticed the little screw in the corner of that duct\u2026
\u2026which makes it appear as though the case might have been designed to hold an optional cooling kit that contained a different duct. Removing the screw and the duct gives us access to a radiator-mounting space that\u2019s more than 420mm tall, despite being limited to three 120mm fans.
As for graphics card and motherboard space, we found Fractal Design\u2019s 416mm maximum card-length rating realistic, and we measured more than 11 inches (280mm) of space between the expansion panel and the motherboard tray\u2019s inward step. That\u2019s enough space to fit the 9.7-to-10.8-inch enthusiast-class motherboards that often get saddled with the loose \u201cEATX\u201d label, but not enough to fit some bigger workstation-class boards that also qualify as EATX.Building With the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air
The Pop 2 Air’s lightweight, well-organized build kit includes four zip ties, four silicon „dampers“ (and corresponding screws) for mounting 3.5-inch drives, eight #6-32 panhead screws for securing the motherboard to nine standoffs (the center standoff has a handy locator pin), four combo-head power supply screws, and four M3 screws for securing a 2.5-inch drive to the bottom of the 3.5-inch drive tray.
The Pop 2 Air\u2019s ARGB controller connects directly to our power supply via an SATA-style power cable; the power button and headset jack connect via the usual power and HD Audio header blocks; and, as noted, the two USB ports connect via one 19-pin, first-generation USB 3.x cable, limiting the Type-C port’s data throughput.
Each fan has a single 3-pin fan input and a single 3-pin pass-through, allowing them to connect in a chain to a single motherboard header. The same is true of each fan\u2019s ARGB cable, though the terminal cable can optionally be installed to the case\u2019s ARGB controller.
And here’s our final test build. The Pop 2 Air is so spacious that our 12-inch-long graphics card appears embarrassingly short.
Ah, the problem of shooting RGB against a white background: If you manually dim the photo on your device, you\u2019ll get a better view of the ARGB lighting provided by front-panel fans. The effect looks pretty stark when viewed in person.Testing the Fractal Design Pop 2 Air
We compared the Pop 2 Air to several other triple-front-fan cases using the following hardware configuration.
Our test results with this particular mix of comparison cases appear to split into two distinct groups, though we can\u2019t tell exactly why. (It may have something to do with the cooler\u2019s position over the motherboard.) At any rate, the Pop 2 Air fell into the warmer of the two camps.
That said, given the deltas, only the Pop 2 Air’s showing on the CPU temperature test was a concern, versus the other models in this competitive set. (As the tests are run under heavy CPU load, this number may matter to you more or less, depending on how you mean to stress the PC you build.) The noise level might be more revealing, as the Pop 2 Air is also the second-quietest case of the six.<\/p>\n