Wednesday, June 29th 2022
Fractal Design Launches the Pop Series of Cases
Fractal fuse style and function in the Pop Series - a brand-new case family. Pop Air features a mesh front to prioritize airflow, while Pop Silent offers sound-dampened panels and a closed front to help minimize sound. While Pop Air and Pop Silent might differ in their ambitions, both styles offer a solid build quality, a straight-forward layout, and a uniquely stylish design expression.
Pop Air brings attitude to airflow, melding precision engineering with dynamic design. This includes a range of cases with vividly colored motherboard plates, drive trays and exterior accents for a fresh, expressive feel. The functional focal point of Pop Air is at the front, where a honeycomb mesh provides access to fan-powered cooling. As with all Pop Series cases, the front also introduces a neatly concealed storage drawer which can be used to stow away desktop clutter or be replaced to host up to two optical drives.
[Editor's Note: we've just posted our in-depth review of the Fractal Design Pop]Pop Silent combines quiet performance with a sleek, minimalist design aesthetic. It features a sound-dampened closed front, side panel, and top to help deliver an all-round quieter experience. Its clean appearance and sound-dampening functionality allow Pop Silent to serve as a quietly stylish case for mixed use, productivity, and lighter gaming.
If one distinction was not enough, both Pop Air and Pop Silent are available in Mini and XL versions to offer a truly diverse and flexible range of cases for a wide variety of build aspirations. Whether looking to create a large airflow-centric gaming system or a small and silent productivity partner, Pop Series offers a strong, stylish, and versatile option.
Source:
Fractal Design
Pop Air brings attitude to airflow, melding precision engineering with dynamic design. This includes a range of cases with vividly colored motherboard plates, drive trays and exterior accents for a fresh, expressive feel. The functional focal point of Pop Air is at the front, where a honeycomb mesh provides access to fan-powered cooling. As with all Pop Series cases, the front also introduces a neatly concealed storage drawer which can be used to stow away desktop clutter or be replaced to host up to two optical drives.
[Editor's Note: we've just posted our in-depth review of the Fractal Design Pop]Pop Silent combines quiet performance with a sleek, minimalist design aesthetic. It features a sound-dampened closed front, side panel, and top to help deliver an all-round quieter experience. Its clean appearance and sound-dampening functionality allow Pop Silent to serve as a quietly stylish case for mixed use, productivity, and lighter gaming.
If one distinction was not enough, both Pop Air and Pop Silent are available in Mini and XL versions to offer a truly diverse and flexible range of cases for a wide variety of build aspirations. Whether looking to create a large airflow-centric gaming system or a small and silent productivity partner, Pop Series offers a strong, stylish, and versatile option.
50 Comments on Fractal Design Launches the Pop Series of Cases
I don't mind RGB lighting, but it gets to a point where its too much trouble; especially for the poor sucker that is actually doing the build. It just baffles me how some of these companies come out with something nice for RGB lighting with a lot of potential and totally screw it up with their software and/or hardware controller. Its like they have moronic script kiddies writing their software for them.
Edit: I'm just wondering where the air intake for the Silent series is.
The lighting is on by default because it's powered by the 3-pin or 4-pin that drives the fan itself. The ARGB cable is for data only and without a signal from a motherboard or controller header, colour-cycling rainbow vomit is typically all you get. RGBLED will suck until there's a single standard that all fans comply with, the same way that PWM fans all use the same 4-pin connector.
Corsair actually has a good idea consolidating the controls into a single software, but their software can be crappy and rather aggressive when you install a new corsair product and do not wish to have it controlled by the software being used to control some other Corsair product that you already had installed previously.
1. It cannot have proprietary connectors. Either direct control through the motherboard (like with RAM), or a standard ARGB cable is fine, but I'm not buying a controller for something that doesn't add any practical value to my system.
2. It has to work with motherboard software. Same as with the above: I'm not installing an extra app to control something with no added value. ASUS Aura Sync, or nothing. That's it.
Again what is obsolete? I firmly believe that you are getting less value on cases and more problems with the current style of cases because sheeple want bling bling over function. :)
Again. I have never.... EVER in my entire life, dealing with all of the Techies in Silicon Valley land tell me that they got laid by a real person, (thots don''t count) because of their stunning, beautiful and brave setup. :)
It's got more RGB than a unicorn disco.
Someone asked about turning them off, and my answer was to simply not power them - so you've got who you're talking to backwards, on that point. Hardware controllers are the best for most people, set and forget with zero software overheads - as long as you're happy with all your lights being on the same setting
(Although yes, you could get two controllers or more it'd be annoying) Burned CD's die fast, printed/stamped ones dont. The organic dyes used inside them corrode fast, all my anime from my 56k days was lost despite being kept in an airtight container out of the sun.
My last three relationships were all from women who liked teh bling bling and gaming so... have fun with your older setups? No ones forcing you to upgrade, but technologies die off all the time.
I have a USB BD drive that i can use for the rare times i need it, and it's a lot smaller than an internal 5.25" monstrosity.
How do you "not power" RAM,
How do you "not power" your graphics card?
Of the CPU coolers I've used (AIO and air), a majority spew rainbows without the ARGBLED cable and corresponding software or motherboard support.
Case fan ARGBLED is so messed up that I can actually believe that you have some with LEDs on a completely isolated circuit with its own dedicated power rail. But that's not true for all of them for sure.
Personally, I take good care that whatever RGB product I buy is compatible with the ARGB header and my motherboard software.
With cases, I either by the basic edition with no RGB, or swap out the factory-fitted fans to my own (they are usually much better anyway).
With graphics cards, an Asus GPU will definitely work with Asus motherboard software, for example, so no issues there.
With RAM, you can just as easily buy a non-RGB one as an RGB one.
With CPU coolers, you can use any fan on top of most chunks of metal. When it's an AIO, I always read reviews, and make sure I get an ARGB connector, and not proprietary controls and software.
All in all: don't blame RGB for the bling you don't need - just choose your components wisely. :)
Back on topic, I wouldn't *have* to avoid RGB if cases weren't exclusively tempered glass these days. Opaque side panels are something of an endangered species right now.
Motherboard lighting can be turned off in the BIOS on almost every board.
RGB ram can be turned off in either the BIOS or software, and it remains off (corsair rams hardware lighting is a good example)
That said, anyone opposed to RGB wouldnt spend the extra on hardware that includes it in the first place - with the exception of cases and cooling where you might not get a choice and thats what my original comment was about. Dont like it? don't plug it in.
As I said, I'm sure there are plenty of RGBLED fans where the power for the lighting is separate to the power for the motor. That is arguably preferable since the intensity of the lighting shouldn't be dependent on the fan RPM, which is often the case in budget fans. Motherboard lighting yes, that's usually (but not always) an option. I've encountered a couple of boards (one MSI, another Asrock) where the BIOS was either bugged or broken and RGBLEDs couldn't be disabled. The ASRock on was particularly annoying as the function was there (in the BIOS) but ignored until POST, and then vanished entirely after a BIOS update.
RGB RAM depends on motherboards. I've found far more boards that don't have the ability to control the RAM and require shitty software to be installed, again - something that will result in rainbow spew until you've finished logging in and had the software tell the RAM to stop doing rainbows. In a utopian world where there's an abundance of choice and stock, I'd agree with you.
Sadly, in the real world and on real store shelves, the non-RGB stuff is starting to become an endangered species. Just because the manufacturer claims to make a non-RGB variant doesn't translate to there being one available for you to purchase. Thankfully yes. Though black only - which is a shame because fractal's define compact looks great in white. Chances are good it's going to go against a white wall and light wood/white is a more common desk colour than black.
That's a nitpick though, I'm please to see that initial stocks of POP cases in the UK appear to include solid side panel variants for the moment.
I have my ITX LAN system and servers setup with RGB, but unless i'm actually at a LAN they all power off (I use hardware controllers with IR remotes, also wired to the case reset button for global on/off)
My main system uses Razers ARGB controller, since it has a setting to disable all RGB when the screen goes off - so with a 5 minute idle timer, if i go AFK *all* lighting on my system, internal and external shuts down to not waste power when i'm not ready to be hypnotised by the spew.
There are ways around all this, with the most obvious being to be careful what you purchase - my brother got some... trident? RAM and found that in sleep mode they default to 100% brightness. He sure loves that.
What you're talking about is being able to configure all the LEDs to off via either BIOS or one piece of software. The problem is that you do have to install that software at least once, and for some devices, leave the software running permanently.
The idiocy of software-controlled lighting is that it needs to default to off if there's no software input rather than OMFG PARTY TIME MAX BRIGHTNESS RAINBOW DISCO.