A-RGB Confusion

Scotianbank · October 24, 2020

Hello LTT Forum,

First post here, hope you guys can welcome me to your community! I'm planning out the parts for my new build, my first build (for myself, second in total, made one a few years back for a cousin).

I want to dive head in into customization, and I want to add 3 A-RGB fans, an A-RGB water block, and an A-RGB pump/res combo. The 3 fans are 2 from SilverStone and 1 from CoolerMaster, the pump/res combo, as well as the CPU block are from Alphacool.

My motherboard is going to be either the Gigabyte Arorus b450i, or b550i (perhaps an x570i if I happen to find a used one at a good price). All 3 of these boards come with a single A-RGB header (at least the b boards do, not sure if the x has two, but I doubt it).

What I want to know, is how can I best, and most affordably, connect those 5 A-RGB devices to my mobo's header? Can I just buy a 5 way splitter (plus any necessary adapters in terms of compatibility, which I think I don't need), and just hook them up to with with Gigabyte's RGB Fusion Software?

Can the software an Mobo header differentiate between the 5 different devices, or would it just register as a single A-RGB strip of x length?

I consider myself to be quite savvy in terms of computer expertise, but even if I know a bit about the current state of A-RGB/RGB devices, I just haven't had the experience, either directly or with a video, of how to make everything work together seamlessly; all while having just a single A-RGB header, as well as a limited amount of LEDs per header.

Can you guys please tell my what I should do? Should I just bite the bullet and buy an A-RGB controlled, and let the PC handle them through their approximate software, or should I just go YOLO and install all daisy with the 5-way splitter strait into the mob.

Thanks from a curious/anxious nerd

-Scott