If we’re building PCs here, i wanna hear your opinions on (A)RGB LEDs. 5V, 12V, single color, addressable. MFing Lights.
What’s your preferred amount? Just a few LED fans? Or some RGB RAM sticks? Maybe just on your CPU cooler? Or a single solitary LED strip?
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you need more. Maybe your build isn’t complete unless everything is glowing and synced. LED strip, LED fans, CPU cooler, GPU, the works. Why can’t a PC be functional and fun to look at?
Or maybe you want no LEDs at all. Maybe you’re a Noctua fan. Maybe you cringe at the idea of PC components that light up more than absolutely necessary.
So let’s hear it. How much lighting is enough? Is there such a thing as enough, or too much for you?
How much lighting is enough?
Definitive answer: As much or as little as the person building the PC wants.
For me the correct answer is zero.
For someone else the correct answer is All The Lights!!!
Both (and everywhere in between) are correct.
It’s your PC you are building, so do what you want.
I think this is the correct answer. Everyone should be able to find components that fit their use case. If that means no window panel, no lights, just business? That’s great.
If that means a pink, red, white, or blue case with lights like a 4th of July show? that’s fine too.
Thank you for your reasonable answer.
Any lights is too many lights, they are pointless and obnoxious IMO. I fucking hate how my current laptop has one of those stupid fucking rgb backlit keyboards which lights up to full brightness when the computer goes into standby but isn’t closed.
The sooner manufacturers stop making this trash the better.
I’m glad they make LED parts for me and non LED parts for you. I’m personally very happy that so many components offer customizable lighting these days. At least for my desktop haha
Zero. Zero RGB is enough.
I don’t need my bedroom lit up at night like an amusement park because the PC hardware makers think all gamers need Extryme Lighting.
My motherboard’s power LED is too much.
Zero. It seems like the rabid focus on aesthetics has lead to unbreathable (but good looking) PC cases that make it harder to cool components and ultimately worsen performance indirectly. And I am still irritated that the RGB on my current PC cant be turned off via software or via the motherboard (yay known bugs that were never fixed!) which made it so I had to completely shut the PC off in my room in order to sleep until I found out where the manual RGB toggle was.
I just want the computer to work. Without any problems. Without extra debugging. Removing lights keeps it simple. Keeps the component simple. Keeps the heat down. Less things to fail.
Keeps the heat down.
Weak LED lights like those produce barely any heat at all, unless you’re talking about fitting an incandescent bulb inside your case?
It’s still excess heat. Especially if you don’t have the computer in a place where you can inspect the lights. It’s just wasted energy. Wasted energy becomes heat.
It’s extra circuitry, extra power going through the system, extra electromagnetic interference. It complicates a system. That’s fine for people who want it, I’m just listing the reasons why I don’t want it
Ah that makes more sense. I feel like wasted energy is a much better reason for not having LEDs than excess heat.
It almost feels like saying you don’t like a car because of its colour rather than because it eats 3x as much fuel compared to anything else in its class. Both are valid reasons to dislike it, but one is kinda more important than the other.
Wasted energy becomes heat. 100%.
It’s like not liking a car, that has a cosmetic spoiler on it. It actually slows the car down, unless you’re a high performance track car that needs that extra downward pressure. Most spoilers you see are merely cosmetic. Actually hurting car performance.
Zero decorative elements. Hate them. One for power and one for disk acttivity. I turn the rest off whenever I can, or if possible, physically remove them.
Though RGB on the keyboard is enabled during Christmas, when I string the lights up on the Christmas tree.
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So I’ve got 7 rgb fans with two zones each, ram with 8 spots on each, four led strips hidden around the case for ambience,an air with a light cap, a keyboard and a mouse. They’re all synced and great. My latest GPU has a light strip on it, and that was honestly too much. It’s too many things for me to care about, I’m fine running the program for the ram, and the program for everything else, but I can’t be bothered to have another thing to control lights on the GPU and motherboard, so I just turn them off.
If anyone knows a complete unifying program for all lights that’s as customizable as corsairs software, I’ll turn them back on. CAM is actually a pretty big program that I’m sure could be done better, but I haven’t found a replacement yet.
Here’s hoping the Windows 11 feature will be for to access any and all rgb components soon
I think there’s something called OpenRGB that’s tries to unify all the RGB standards (CAM/Aura/Mystic Light/etc)
While it can be a little flaky depending upon your individual setup, OpenRGB has been great for my rig. I have a simple mobo/RAM/GPU lighting using 3 different bits of individual software, and OpenRGB is very capable at taking their place. Presets make it even easier to set up your favorite styles. Highly recommend. Oh, and it’s free.
Windowless case. LEDs are irrelevant :)
The more the the better! Last Christmas I built gaming PCs with my kids. They have glass cases with lighted fans and video cards, and want more.
So Christmas is coming up ……. What would be a couple good mini projects to add fun lighting?
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Depends on the [pc] case?
Some people have the need to spy/ stan on what their computer’s internals is doing all the time. and I do get how fun that could be. The nsa/ kgb/ mi6/ ccp does that all the time. So why not lights? Interrogation lights sounds cool too.
but if the pc case isn’t for that kind of thing, maybe no lights or the minimum you get from any discounted hardware is reasonable enough.
My aio pump was the first component I ever bought that had ARGB, before that it was just a single blue light in my case to let me know my pc was on.
Now I have my gpu vertically mounted with an aio on it, an ARGB gpu brace and two argb led strips I stuck to my desk (so outside the case). I mostly just keep them on orange. I have no need for them to blink or change colour, even though it could be nice to have them indicate when my cpu overheats.
i’m a no rgb at all person, if it were easier i would even desolder the ones on my raspberry pi fan but it’s all a hunk of plastic
I only have it on my keyboard. I don’t need it in the PC itself, and Id rather have it somewhere a bit more visible, as I don’t put the unit on top of my desk, but in the tower cubby of my desk.
