Welcome to Hardware Artisan! If you are looking to make your PC 'LOOK' awesome with RGB lighting then this is the place, read on!
RGB lighting is simple enough, we all understand that RGB stands for RED/GREEN/BLUE, and when you vary the intensity levels of Red/Green/Blue light, you can produce a wide range of color.....each LED package contains all 3 colors (and some contain white), although these colors are seperate, they blend together and our eyes see the resulting mixed color...and if you didn't know that, now you do!
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"Mood lighting" is used in many different applications. Lighting is a great way to create a certain ambience or atmosphere as well as highlighting a certain object. Have you ever seen a nice vehicle on the road that had LED lighing on the undercarriage? It's unnecessary, but highlights an object that people appreciate. PC's, and more specifically, gaming PC's, are a perfect fit for this technology. We place value on the aesthetic that motherboards, memory, GPU's, heatsink and waterblock cooling bring. It's fun to highlight these objects in amazing lighting. Lighting also opens up endless artistic possibilities and allows your imagination to run wild. Introduce custom water cooling and case modding and just about anything is possible. All of this can be summarized by the following statement...."It's seriously awesome"
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Not everybody agrees however, i've seen more than a few PC enthusiasts express their displeasure of RGB lighting and it's true, about every gaming product has RGB capabilities or support to the point of being annoying. Fortunately, you can simply turn "OFF" lighting if you choose to.
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There are many different RGB control "ecosystems' available, some are simple, others are more complex. With all the current offerings and solutions for RGB lighting out there, it can be a bit confusing on what products and solutions are right for you. It's easy to find yourself with 2, 3 or more different control schemes and applications.
Were focusing on the realm of PC RGB lighting, there is a bigger world of RGB LED's and control systems for other applications out there, it's possible there is some overlap in some areas.
Here are a few key terms you should be familiar with, you will come across these when looking at products.
SMD 5050 - SMD stands for Surface Mounted Device, 5050 is the size of the LED device itself in MM, 5.0mm x 5.0mm, there are other sizes of LED, but 5050 is common in the products for PC's
RGBW - LED's that included 4th "white" DIODE, Normally white is produced by increasing all levels of red/green/blue
WS2811 - LED DRIVER IC
WS2812 - This is an integrated 5050 LED that contains the LED and IC Driver
WS2812b - SAME, less conductors, 4 vs 6, reverse polarity protection? - 1 data signal
WS2813 - newer version, can withstand burned out LED. 6 pin
DIGITAL LED - Ability to control each LED individually
ANALOG LED - Control the strip as a whole, 1 color at a time.
World Semi - Manufacturer of WS devices.
There are several major control schemes for managing and controlling LED's and the lighting patterns they can produce.
Motherboard Control - Multiple MB manufacturers offer built in abilities to connect and control RGB LED lighting. I will describe in more detail the connections and software for MSI, Gigabyte, Asus and ASrock. There are many devices such as LED Strips, Fans and accessories that will work with these schemes.
Standalone Controllers - Corsair, Asus, NZXT and others offer controllers and lighting products as well as the software to control them. These controllers do not depend on any motherboard ability to control rgb lighting.
Other standalone controllers - Some controllers facilitate led strips and fans, but use no software to control the lighting using standalone means, often with a remote controller to cycle through different lighting effects
Individual components - other components and accessories often have rgb lighting but offer no control or are able to controlled through multiple sources.
Phillips Hue/Razer - Phillips hue has the ability to be controlled by a PC including synchronized lighting. Razer software integrates phillips hue as well.
Cross Compatability - There is alot of overlap in functionality between all the different products.
Which one of these control methods you choose depends on several factors...
What products do you already own? Maybe you already have a motherboard that supports RGB lighting, or maybe you have a specific set of RGB fans and streps. Or is this going to a brand new build and you have the freedom to make any decisions you like?
What is your Budget? RGB Lighting prices like most things range from very cheap kits to high quality expensive controllers. Again, as with most things, you get what you pay for. There is alot of advice out there, but only you can decide how important lighting is to you. If for example, gaming performance is the most important factor to you, and you have to sacrifice component quality to get the lighting effects you want, I would recommend purchasing the gaming components you want and upgrade lighting as you get funding. Ideally, you will implement your lighting solution at build time so that you can do all the cable management.
How are you "REALLY" going to use and enjoy the lighting? I would ask yourself this question. Fancy lighting effects look great and I have them installed on my PC, but I rarely ever use them aside from having set patterns for certain games. For general use, I tend to keep a single color lit, or a slowly changing color. Extremely fancy complex effects can be pricey for all the components. However, like everything for the PC Master Race, upgrading is a way of life.
With that said, I personally subscribe to the fact that the only reason to do RGB lighting is because it "Looks" awesome. Let's be honest, it's cool, there are very few real practical reasons to do it, but that's really an irrelevant point in my opinion. Because it looks awesome is reason enough. With that point made, I decided to buy the lighting that I liked the best.
How do you want to control the lighting? Many of the products mentioned use a software application to control the lights and can give you varying levels of control over the lights including setting profiles for different lighting effects for different applications. Others have simplistic external IR remotes to control the effects, these usually have less control. Others still may utilize buttons on or inside your case.
There are a couple of primary methods and connections that are employed to control RGB lighting. Simpler RGB lights called analog lights will use a 12v 4 pin connector, pin 1 being the 12v, followed by the R/G/B signals. With this setup only a single color can be set at one time affecting the whole strip or fan. The pinout is 12V/G/R/G which is a standard found on most motherboards that will integrate RGB lighting.
Another method is Addressable RGB lighting, or ARGB for short. In this setup, each LED has it's own IC and therefore can be controlled individually. This uses a different pinout. A standard 4 pin connector is 5v/data/none/ground. Each IC on each LED can decode it's own signal and set its own color. Corsair uses a propietary 3 pin version of this 5v/data/ground.
ARGB - Adressable RGB. ARGB will give more sophisticated paterns and is typicall more expensive. There may be other proprietary connections out there and although these 2 setups are not generally compatable, I have seen some adapters between the 2.
RGB fans typically have 2 connection cables, one for FAN control, either PWM or DC voltage. The second connection will be for the RGB. Some kits will integrate the RGB control and fan power into one connector, but generally it's split.
As we discussed, many motherboards now include integrated RGB lighting control. There are connectors right on the motherboard itself for external RGB products including RGB fans and RGB Strips and in many cases the motherboard itself will have RGB lighting. The motherboard manufacturer will then provide a software application for controlling the lighting, and the BIOS setup itself will usually have lighting control mechanisms.
Most motherboards will have 1 or more of the basic 12V/G/R/B connections, which will allow for a single color at a time. Some boards will contain the 4 pin 5v/data/none/ground connection will allows for ARGB (Addressable RGB) which allows for controlling each LED individually. Using the ARGB method, you can create a wide range of patterns and sequences to suit your needs.
MSI is one motherboard manufacturer that even has a corsair 3 pin connection, which is a proprietary 5v ARGB connection.
Many products will advertise their compatability with which motherboard's scheme they will work with.
If you already own a motherboard that has RGB capabilities, that may be a compelling reason to invest in products that work with that ecosystem to reduce costs and simply your control of the lighting.
Even if you have a motherboard that supports lighting, external controllers, such as those from corsair will work fine, although you will need 2 applications to control all the lighting.
For example, I have a Gigabyte motherboard in a build that has RGB lighting and 12v connectors. I chose to use Corsair lighting controllers and corsair lights. I must use Gigabytes RGB fusion software for the internal lights and iCUE from corsair to control the corsair lights. I have found the gigabyte software kind of clunky to use, so I simply leave those lights a solid color all the time and just use corsair for primary lighting control.
Here are the current (2020) names motherboard manufacturers are using for their software. Some have more than one designation
Asus:
Aura Sync - Products that can syncronize with other Asus RGB products get this logo - includes MB/Monitors/GPU
Aura RGB - Asus products that contain RGB lighting
Aura Creator - Asus's control software to Customize RGB lighting - list of compatable devices on asus.com (requires Armoury crate software)
Asus Aura Ready - lighting ecosystem that enables the interaction of effects between games, applicaitons and hardware. (list of support games on website)
Gigabyte:
Gigabyte Fusion - This is the logo for products that support RGB and the control software.
MSI:
Mystic Light - Conrolling Software
Ambient Link - Technology that synchonizes mystic light products with gaming. Compatible accessories such as nanoleaf ilgh panels and phillips hue.
ASROCK:
ASROCK POLYCHROME RGB - You will see this logo on ASRock products that have a personalized RGB LED module and software included.
ASROCK POLYCHROME SYNC - If you see this logo, it means that this device can be synchronized with ASRock motherboard, or even other devices that support ASRock Polychrome SYNC.
ASROCK POLYCHROME CERTIFIED - Indicates the device has been officially certified by ASRock, it can perform the lighting effects without compatibility problems.
ASRock Polychrome SYNC totally supports Razer Chroma effect.
Motherboard control offers an integrated solution, no external controllers needed, a single piece of software and often a wide range of products that support a specific ecosystem. Not all motherboards from a manufacturer will include RGB support however, and in some cases the lighting effects can be basic. See our review articles of the major motherboard ecosystems, how they work and how they compare.
RGB controllers with Software support
If your motherboard doesn't have RGB support or doesn't offer exactly what your looking for, there are RGB controllers that integrate into existing setups allowing full software control and integration with other products in some cases. Corsair, Asus and others offer products that will perform this function.
These solutions connect the controller to a USB header on the motherboard and allow various RGB components to connect to the controller itself which then offers RGB controls.
Some controllers, such as the corsair commander pro, offer additional functions such and pwm fan control and temperature sensors.
These controllers can be great solutions and additions regardless of whether or not your motherboard supports RGB.
Stand Alone controllers -
These are setups which offer control of RGB lighting but do not integrate into a software solution. Often using an RF remote control to change lighting and effects. Fans on these controllers may or may not be controlled by the motherboard dc or pwm controls. These kits can be found cheaper and in some cases offer a good basic level of RGB lighting.
There are even still more products which are finding their way into being integrated into the world of PC. Phillips hue for example, can offer syncrhonization with media content on our PC. Phillips hue also integrates into the RAZER line of products.
Many products including Keyboards, Video Cards, Memory, Water Cooling components, Cases, Power supplies, Hard Drive carriers, mouse pads, headset stands are all adding RGB lighting. RGB lighting is a fantastic way to show off your hardware and enjoy the atmosphere that pc's and gaming can generate.
On this website, we are trying to learn and share with you all the different types of RGB ecosystems so that you can plan your next PC build. The fun part of lighting is that you can choose to do it in any way that you like. What looks good to you may not look good to others.
Check out our other videos/reviews/articles in which we explore each seperate motherboard ecosystem along with rgb contollers. Check back often as this article will be kept as up to date as possible. There is a trend right now to integrate RGB lighting outside of the case as in the example of the icue ls100.
----------------NEW 2/2/2020
Jacknet RGB - Software to control Corsair (iCue and aura sync)
VDG Port - 3 port (compatable with corsair)?
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