Fractal Pop Air Case Fan Setup

[Kuro2502]

I'm building a PC using the Fractal Pop Air case, the system is all air cooled and I have a Hyper 212 as a CPU cooler. I was wondering what's the best setup for the case fan. Right now I'm thinking of 2 intake fans at the front and 3 exhaust fans (2 at the top & 1 at the back). Would that be good enough? For the case fans I'm thinking of getting the Cooler Master Masterfan MF120, do suggest if there are better alternatives for decently priced RGB fans.

[TatamiMatt]

3 hours ago, Kuro2502 said:

I'm building a PC using the Fractal Pop Air case, the system is all air cooled and I have a Hyper 212 as a CPU cooler. I was wondering what's the best setup for the case fan. Right now I'm thinking of 2 intake fans at the front and 3 exhaust fans (2 at the top & 1 at the back). Would that be good enough? For the case fans I'm thinking of getting the Cooler Master Masterfan MF120, do suggest if there are better alternatives for decently priced RGB fans.

Few questions, what version of the case are you getting Normal, Mini or XL, and secondly it comes with fans preinstalled, so RGB fan or no RGB fan bundle?

 

Also, what CPU do you have?

[Kuro2502]

6 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Few questions, what version of the case are you getting Normal, Mini or XL, and secondly it comes with fans preinstalled, so RGB fan or no RGB fan bundle?

 

Also, what CPU do you have?

It's the Normal version of the case and yes it does have 3 preinstalled RGB fans (2 at the front & 1 at the back), but I wanted to add 2 more at the top and I might as well make all the fans uniform, I don't really want mismatching aesthetics. Another reason is because I want PWM fans rather than the DC stock fans so I can better control them depending on the thermals.

 

My CPU is Ryzen 7 5700x

[TatamiMatt]

7 minutes ago, Kuro2502 said:

It's the Normal version of the case and yes it does have 3 preinstalled RGB fans (2 at the front & 1 at the back), but I wanted to add 2 more at the top and I might as well make all the fans uniform, I don't really want mismatching aesthetics. Another reason is because I want PWM fans rather than the DC stock fans so I can better control them depending on the thermals.

 

My CPU is Ryzen 7 5700x

The Aspect 12 fans fractal provides are fine for what youll need, also, theyre still 100% controllable in DC mode

 

Secondly the most i would do is 2 at front, 1 rear back and 1 rear top if you must, dont have more exhaust than intake, and to add to this, if you have an exhaust too far forward, itll suck air straight out from the intake and starve your pc of air, so running another fan in this instance will actually lower performance

 

TLDR 2 options for placement, as they are now or add 1 to top rear, no more

 

If you did want to change id put 2 MF140s in the front and 1 or 2 MF120s in the rear in the same setup as i said before

[TatamiMatt]

4 hours ago, Kuro2502 said:

Do suggest if there are better alternatives for decently priced RGB fans.

There are the PWM rgb fractal aspects which are much better performing than the MF series, however i do believe the MFs RGB is nicer

 

EDIT: found out coolermaster brought out MF120/140 Halo2s which perform very well actually, if youre looking into Masterfans, definitely pay the extra for the Halo2, move more air, better RGB and quieter

[Kuro2502]

 

13 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

The Aspect 12 fans fractal provides are fine for what youll need, also, theyre still 100% controllable in DC mode

 

Secondly the most i would do is 2 at front, 1 rear back and 1 rear top if you must, dont have more exhaust than intake, and to add to this, if you have an exhaust too far forward, itll suck air straight out from the intake and starve your pc of air, so running another fan in this instance will actually lower performance

 

TLDR 2 options for placement, as they are now or add 1 to top rear, no more

 

If you did want to change id put 2 MF140s in the front and 1 or 2 MF120s in the rear in the same setup as i said before

Ahh alright, thanks for the insight. I'll probably go with 2 MF140s front and 2 MF120s rear.

 

21 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

There are the PWM rgb fractal aspects which are much better performing than the MF series, however i do believe the MFs RGB is nicer

 

EDIT: found out coolermaster brought out MF120/140 Halo2s which perform very well actually, if youre looking into Masterfans, definitely pay the extra for the Halo2, move more air, better RGB and quieter

Yeah, the Halo2 is what I've been looking at actually.

 

Thanks again for the advice

[TatamiMatt]

1 minute ago, Kuro2502 said:

 

Ahh alright, thanks for the insight. I'll probably go with 2 MF140s front and 2 MF120s rear.

 

Yeah, the Halo2 is what I've been looking at actually.

 

Thanks again for the advice

If youre from the UK, theyre decently cheap on amazon rn, all 4 fans racking up just under £80

[RevGAM]

Since intake points have dust filters, it's advisable to have (if all fans are identical) one more fan on intake than exhaust. However, every setup is different so you can always play with other configurations.  As matMatt said, putting the front top fan as exhaust and the top front as intake will likely cause the former to suck right out what the latter brought in.