3pin or 4pin GPU Mount?

[SupersonicSaint]

I have bought the Asus Rog Strix B550 F Gaming WiFi  motherboard and want this RGB GPU mount. Do I get the 3 pin or 4 pin connection and what difference does it make given they have their own RGB remote?

 

Thanks.

[trag1c]

The 4 pin 12V header is for non addressable RGB LED's, The 3 pin interface will be for WS2812B addressable RGB LED'S. The ASUS software will give you more finer grained control such as custom colors where as the remote is you skip the mobo completely and only get the colors they have on the remote.

[-rascal-]

Adding to what @trag1c already mentioned.

4-pin RGB = If you set the color to red, ALL of the little RGB LEDs are set to red (you can still control the lighting pattern, etc). Uses +12v

3-pin ARGB = If you set the color to rainbow, each RGB LED can be a different color. Uses +5v

 

Example...

 

4-pin RGB LED strip

 

vs 3-pin ARGB LED strip

[SupersonicSaint]

Funny how less pins mean better performance. Thanks.

[trag1c]

5 minutes ago, SupersonicSaint said:

Funny how less pins mean better performance. Thanks.

Ya it comes from the fact that each LED actually is mounted on top of or has a chip that takes a serial data signal which then translates into 3 different voltages according to color for each LED. It acts like one big pipe (shift register) where you just keep pushing bits down till you hit the end of the LEDs at which point its locked in at what ever bits are sitting in each section of the pipe or rather each led.  So it has 5V in Data In and Ground for the pins. The data in this type of LED's is timing dependent so once you stop sending bits in is when it gets locked after a certain time period.

 

12V RGB has a R+ G+ B+ voltage lines and a ground to make up the four pins. To set the colors you modulate the voltage of each of those channels to increase or decrease the brightness of LEDs for that channel. This in turn is additive or subtractive colouring depending on how you look at it.

 

There's also a 4 channel addressable variant that operates very similarly but is incompatible with 3 pins. It operates with a 5V power, Data in and Clock in and ground. (SPI bus for the correct name of the protocol used). This one you do the same thing as the 3 pin but you also send a clock signal. This allows you to chain much more LED's together and/or have much higher refresh rates on the LEDs. Once you're done sending your data you finish it off with a packet of bits that says to lock those color bits in and then you have your colors. The fact that its not dependent on timing of the signals is what allows you to have more LEDs because with everything taking x amount of time there's only so many that you can chain together before your update time exceeds what the chips can do.

[thrasher_565]

4 hours ago, trag1c said:

Ya it comes from the fact that each LED actually is mounted on top of or has a chip that takes a serial data signal which then translates into 3 different voltages according to color for each LED. It acts like one big pipe (shift register) where you just keep pushing bits down till you hit the end of the LEDs at which point its locked in at what ever bits are sitting in each section of the pipe or rather each led.  So it has 5V in Data In and Ground for the pins. The data in this type of LED's is timing dependent so once you stop sending bits in is when it gets locked after a certain time period.

 

12V RGB has a R+ G+ B+ voltage lines and a ground to make up the four pins. To set the colors you modulate the voltage of each of those channels to increase or decrease the brightness of LEDs for that channel. This in turn is additive or subtractive colouring depending on how you look at it.

 

There's also a 4 channel addressable variant that operates very similarly but is incompatible with 3 pins. It operates with a 5V power, Data in and Clock in and ground. (SPI bus for the correct name of the protocol used). This one you do the same thing as the 3 pin but you also send a clock signal. This allows you to chain much more LED's together and/or have much higher refresh rates on the LEDs. Once you're done sending your data you finish it off with a packet of bits that says to lock those color bits in and then you have your colors. The fact that its not dependent on timing of the signals is what allows you to have more LEDs because with everything taking x amount of time there's only so many that you can chain together before your update time exceeds what the chips can do.

corsair uses both 3/4 pin argb. you can hook and 3pin to an 4 pin but i don't think you can go from 3pin to 4pin thow

[trag1c]

7 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

corsair uses both 3/4 pin argb. you can hook and 3pin to an 4 pin but i don't think you can go from 3pin to 4pin thow

I missed typed my post lol. It was meant to be 4 pin addressable not 4 channel. The signaling is incompatible so you can't send data using the same protocol to the other type of strips. Electrically it doesn't matter as long as the outside wires are power and ground with then signal has to match signal then you could use a 3 pin on a 4 pin or vice versa with just a change in signal protocol in firmware.

 

If you're interested these are the 2 primary families of LED's used for addressable RGB.

 

3 pin addressable

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812B.pdf

 

4 pin addressable.

https://www.pololu.com/file/0J1234/sk9822_datasheet.pdf

[thrasher_565]

54 minutes ago, trag1c said:

I missed typed my post lol. It was meant to be 4 pin addressable not 4 channel. The signaling is incompatible so you can't send data using the same protocol to the other type of strips. Electrically it doesn't matter as long as the outside wires are power and ground with then signal has to match signal then you could use a 3 pin on a 4 pin or vice versa with just a change in signal protocol in firmware.

 

If you're interested these are the 2 primary families of LED's used for addressable RGB.

 

3 pin addressable

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812B.pdf

 

4 pin addressable.

https://www.pololu.com/file/0J1234/sk9822_datasheet.pdf

i don't really understand how they work. i do no they have micro chips every 3 or so smds the 144 have one every smd. some strips are compatible and some are not. what i no is it uses a pwm and depending on what its set at will make it miss meaning wont light up or flicker.  and the 4pin i have no idea how the clock works ether... would be nice to have a vary detailed video of how it works. another problem is how do you no what pwm your device is set at can you test with a meter or do you need a that wave thing w/e its called.

[SupersonicSaint]

Thanks for all this information. It's incredibly interesting and for some reason I have never seen this talked about before.

[trag1c]

4 hours ago, SupersonicSaint said:

Thanks for all this information. It's incredibly interesting and for some reason I have never seen this talked about before.

No worries

12 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

i don't really understand how they work. i do no they have micro chips every 3 or so smds the 144 have one every smd. some strips are compatible and some are not. what i no is it uses a pwm and depending on what its set at will make it miss meaning wont light up or flicker.  and the 4pin i have no idea how the clock works ether... would be nice to have a vary detailed video of how it works. another problem is how do you no what pwm your device is set at can you test with a meter or do you need a that wave thing w/e its called.

If both of you want to learn more I just posted a massive tutorial on the hobbyist electronics section.