The RGB craze

[Jetster]

We have been over this before

 

[cadaveca]

Sorry, but I really find it hard to ever agree with someone who wears socks with sandals, nevermind sandals with jeans.

 

[Totally]

I don't understand the problem. If you dislike it, turn it off which you do but are going to remain disgruntled about it? I cannot begin to why people seem to live hate on and complain about so trivial when it can be turned off or altered to their face. I would be able to reason with this irrationality if it was forced to be in your face 100% of the time.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I'm just saying that the discussion is simply silly

Then why join in? That's what seems silly to me. If you think RGB lighting is silly, fine. If you think RGB lighting is the best thing since sliced bread, fine. If you are somewhere in the middle, that's fine too.

But to purposely join the discussion just to say the discussion is silly?

I don't understand the problem. If you dislike it, turn it off

Or don't buy it in the first place. There are a lot more top quality cases, cooling options, keyboards and mice without RGB lighting (other than normal indicator lights) than there are such devices with RGB lighting.

 

[Papahyooie]

Then why join in? That's what seems silly to me. If you think RGB lighting is silly, fine. If you think RGB lighting is the best thing since sliced bread, fine. If you are somewhere in the middle, that's fine too.
But to purposely join the discussion just to say the discussion is silly? .

You're not getting my point. Discussion of RGB's themselves is not silly. But discussion of the "craze" is silly, because it inherently assumes that anyone has any say in what other people like.

I came into the thread to make THAT point, mostly to counter the people that inevitably come to hate on RGB lighting. Sure, if you take a snippet and quote me out of context it's going to sound silly.

 

[Jetster]

I said this before in another thread about the same topic. You can't find a high end board without RGB. I would rather my money go to the quality of the board and not lights I don't want. No I don't want to just turn them off. One manufactures makes a change and they all panic and do the same thing. And it's not being a hater, it's being a consumer. I want options and I don't want to waste money

 

[niko084]

I said this before in another thread about the same topic. You can't find a high end board without RGB. I would rather my money go to the quality of the board and not lights I don't want. No I don't want to just turn them off. One manufactures makes a change and they all panic and do the same thing. And it's not being a hater, it's being a consumer. I want options and I don't want to waste money

To be fair it's probably costing you $0.71, but I understand the principle.

 

[INSTG8R]

Hate it I general. My keyboard and mouse are lit and I appreciate it but the whole NFS Underground crap needs to take a short walk...

 

[Vya Domus]

From what I see , in the last year or so , RGB is being shoved into many products when really no one asked for it. Hell , the stock cooler for the 1700 has RGB , did anyone explicitly asked for that ? No , AMD though it was 'hip' and "gamery". Which is what leads to my main complaint , that every company is associating RGB with everything computer related now. Those GPU's with huge ass coolers and fancy metal shrouds that are mostly useless , ugly and drive the price up aren't enough , you can now get them with RGB too.

 

[Bill_Bright]

To be fair it's probably costing you $0.71, but I understand the principle.

It's not outlandish but considerably more than that - even if just a header to add lights later. Motherboard real estate is precious. So designing the circuit course runs, header location, power, and the programming, not to mention the header itself, all add to the cost, complexity, and potentials for failures - again, while doing nothing for performance and when in use, consuming some energy, and generating some heat.

On a $400 motherboard, the cost probably is insignificant. But on a $150 board, it is a considerably larger percentage.

The problem has now become, what is more cost effective for ASUS, Gigabyte, etc.? It costs a lot more money in terms of logistics (inventory, shipping, marketing, labeling, etc.) to support 2 versions of the same motherboard (one with RGB and one without) than it does to support one board with RGB.

 

[GreiverBlade]

actually after reading others opinion, i came to a conclusion: hater just hate for hating and have absolutely no good base to do so ...

various point they "brandish" to justify their hate of RGB are not really valide argument.

by personal experience,
1. the price: nope ... RGB gears don't tend to cost a lot more, actually my G410 Atlas Spectrum did cost me slightly less than my previous Ryos TKL Pro, and the later was only featuring an annoying blue light while my whole rig is just slightly highlighted with white (soft) light (well not a fan of red'n blue tho i don't hate it either ) and my mouse was already a RGB one (Nythe) but i kept it in blue (no point of putting it in white if the color scheme is going to go "blue white red" ... that one.... i hate ... ) same goes for my mouse or mobo, they are not particularly more expensive than other hardware with a rather "plain" look.

2. "it's a f**king rainbow": well that might be true for some cheap board bought on Chinese market (Aliexpress/Banggood/Gearbest ... heck even Amazon) but most product from known brand, have rather logical pattern, i.e.: full one color, animated for those who like it (well i love the green Datafall "à la Matrix" sometime ...)

3. the light hurt your eyes: might be true for some but for myself i rather like to see what i am typing, because even with a light behind my screen (lighting the white wall on the back) i hardly see the letter on my keyboard (and it's a soft white light .... not even aggressive ... )

From what I see , in the last year or so , RGB is being shoved into many products when really no one asked for that. Hell , the stock cooler for the 1700 has RGB , did anyone explicitly asked for that ? No , AMD though it was 'hip' and "gamery". Which is what leads to my main complaint , that every company is associating RGB with everything computer related now. Those GPU's with huge ass coolers and fancy metal shrouds that are mostly useless , ugly and drive the price up aren't enough , you can now get them with RGB too.

you don't need to ask for it, it's a logical evolution of the standard LED except instead of being stuck to one color .... you have the choice of the one you like.... or NO color at all (since most of them can be toggled off) my H115i block is in white ... thanks to that .... otherwise it was a blue light .... (only my Raijintek Triton had white led nonetheless ) and it's neither "hip" and "gamery" it's rather .... practical for several point i mentioned above. (ofc if the led aren't capable of being toggled off or set on a single color ... then you have the right to hate the manufacturer that omitted these option but not the RGB )


i have white light strip, white fans, RGB mobo (I/O shield and audio part) RGB keyboard and mouse and it's not for showing off (hardly anybody other than me see my setup, except on TPU via pictures ... ) my computer being in front of a full south oriented window .... i rarely raise the shutter, so it's also a practical argument, ofc if i didn't need any light, i would press the button on my keyboard (or turn it off in the Swarm software for the mouse) and have it off until i need it.

also the blinking keyboard is not an issue ... it only notify me when i have a discord message (or even the specific area lighting when playing a game to highlight the keys used by the game is quite useful )

 

[Air]

Those GPU's with huge ass coolers and fancy metal shrouds that are mostly useless , ugly and drive the price up aren't enough , you can now get them with RGB too.

The big coolers are not useless at all. But i do agree that they are aesthetically terribly designed. It only gets better when they do offer RGB but paint it red, so you can't actually choose any other color (Msi pls...)

The only GPU coolers that actually look good are the current AMD reference and previous generation Nvidia reference. The rest are so terrible its unbeliveable. Oh, EVGA Kepler generation was the best of them all, I can´t belive they abandoned it.

 

[Bill_Bright]

The big coolers are not useless at all. But i do agree that they are aesthetically terribly designed.

I agree, they not at all useless. And while the design may not be aesthetically pleasing, they (the properly designed ones, anyway) are incredibly practical as they are designed to channel air flow in the most efficient manner.

 

[Vya Domus]

The big coolers are not useless at all.

Gigabyte would disagree with you. They proven that you can fail pretty hard in that regard.

So would EVGA by not providing any cooling on the VRMs despite them using beefy heatsinks with a million sensors and whatnot on their cards.

 

[Air]

Gigabyte would disagree with you. They proven that you can fail pretty hard in that regard.

So would EVGA by not providing any cooling on the VRMs despite them using beefy heatsinks with a million sensors and whatnot on their cards.

It's not because some bad designs get released ocasionally that the concept of big open air coolers is bad. More mass and surface area WILL lead to better cooling if done properly. Msi, for instance, consistently gets great results.

There will be examples of bad execution, like this aberration from Palit, but those fails do not invalidate the concept.

 

[Vya Domus]

It's not because some bad designs get released ocasionally that the concept of big open air coolers is bad.

Well not all huge fancy air coolers are going to be bad I agree , but seeing companies that obviously have had a lot of experience fuck up like that is puzzling and it does sort of diminish their relevance and value.

 

[Vario]

I hate blue LEDS. I cover them on my monitor with electrical tape. My FILCO keyboard had a big bright blue led capslock scrollock numlock section and I covered that too. Its too distracting from my screen and can't stand looking at it. The faint green is okay on my APC brand power strip which sits on desk and red informational LEDs are alright inside my case on the motherboard but I really do not want to see them in general. I don't even plug in my case's LEDs which is fine because on my current case they don't even work anymore.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I like blue better than any other color. Green and amber are too common. Red denotes (to me) a problem (not good), or standby (I can live with). And while some blue LEDs are too bright, white almost always is.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I like it in general but not used in trivial ways , if it was all tied to function and the parts of my rig under heavy load went blue to red then id see that as a useful feature , i use flashing leds to inform a casual glance as to the temperature my pcs at now but i dislike other peoples use of it personally. I wouldn't set mine up to dance to tunes etc.
Still not that important to me though ,i dont own any atm but likely will at some point since its all going that way.

My biggest hate on it is the lack of standards, my mate built a full rig of rgb ness including keyboard mice and mat and the amount of software to run it all is ridiculous , i hate all packaged software now too ie their oc and rgb control and all that other useless and never really supported crap.

 

[RejZoR]

Sorry, but I really find it hard to ever agree with someone who wears socks with sandals, nevermind sandals with jeans.

Don't you know this is currently the highest fashion in Milan, THE capital of fashion? The bigger the contrst between sandals and socks, the better. Naturally, this means white socks with dark sandals.

Only thing Milan fashion experts haven't got the grasp on yet are dark RGB sandals with white socks. That would be the ultimate fashion statement imo.

 

[eidairaman1]

Tell it to the manufacturers, vote with your wallet, or turn them off.

 

[BiggieShady]

Sorry, but I really find it hard to ever agree with someone who wears socks with sandals, nevermind sandals with jeans.

Now I know you look nothing like your profile pic

 

[Power Slave]

I can see having LED for keyboard to see keys in dark if you use your computer or game with lights off in the room.

Aesthetically RGB just makes it easier to match / switch colors LED components like a tower with LED's inside or sleeved cables you want to match.

Components change all the time so having RGB ability to change color with new upgrades is nice.

Keep in mind, at some point too much RGB ends up being like a busy tiara on your desk IMO.

 

[Kanan]

I love RGB LED and I'd like to have more of it, but I'm kinda at beginner level still, at least my new GPU has LED lit naming on it, switchable in 7 colors or so, I guess it's better than nothing. Just posted my PC in that "Your PC ATM" thread if you're curious. As to why I love it: I like to see my hardware always, especially at night and I enjoy seeing it and the numerous colors as well. My keyboard has simple blue letter lighting, it's somewhat useful at night or when my light's off, but that's it. I'm not a big fan of LED mice and I'm glad the G700 is absolutely dark, downstated and classy.

 

[Vayra86]

It's not outlandish but considerably more than that - even if just a header to add lights later. Motherboard real estate is precious. So designing the circuit course runs, header location, power, and the programming, not to mention the header itself, all add to the cost, complexity, and potentials for failures - again, while doing nothing for performance and when in use, consuming some energy, and generating some heat.

On a $400 motherboard, the cost probably is insignificant. But on a $150 board, it is a considerably larger percentage.

The problem has now become, what is more cost effective for ASUS, Gigabyte, etc.? It costs a lot more money in terms of logistics (inventory, shipping, marketing, labeling, etc.) to support 2 versions of the same motherboard (one with RGB and one without) than it does to support one board with RGB.

While true, the trend with CPUs is that more and more is integrated on the SoC and not in the chipset/on the board itself. Board real estate is only an issue these days because of added features, but not when it doesn't have them - there is actually lots of space on an ATX board for additional stuff, most notably a separate, shielded (! speaking of real estate !) audio zone and stuff like M2.

These days it really isn't hard to add RGB to anything. Our gear still uses the form factors of twenty plus years ago, but everything is baked on much smaller nodes.

Also lets not act like RGB craze is something new. I've known these, in somewhat clumsier form since I was what, 5 years old?