RGB on mobo?

[Fulcrum93.]

Hi all people! 

I'm planning to upgrade my pc as soon as stocks of ryzen 5000 are replenished.

I have a desire for RGB LEDs inside my case to light up colored cables and hardware, but can't wrap my head around compatibilities between mobos, ram, led and fans.. 

 

Since I want to upgrade to a ryzen, I'll be using either a 450/470 or a 550/570. My current board is a Z77 so you can very well imagine I have no idea how RGB headers on mobos work and on what, hence my doubts on compatibilities: what goes on with what? RAM, can I take Trident, Ballistix, Corsair? Should they go along with the mobo rgb software/led? And what about led Strips? 

Like: I'll buy icue from corsair, will it shake hands with any mobo? 

 

Thanks all! 

 

[HanZie82]

If you want RGB and want it done well you need to make sure its able to use the same software.

Second please note those RGB leds need to be payed for, so whatever they cost thats what you lose in performance!

 

Next there are some different ways of how RGB works, i would suggest getting into that first. So you know what you want to buy.

• Regular RGB just has leds that can be green blue or red. (or any combo)
• But theres also RGBW that has a white led extra in it, so it can have some nice white's (red green and blue does make white but its not that nice tbh)
• Then there is also individual addressable leds, those can be controlled directly and thats whats used when you see them 'running lights' stuff.

 

There are mobo's with headers for them all. There are mobo's with a single header, or even none. So yeah it's not an easy task.

[Fulcrum93.]

Hi Han, thanks for the reply! 

Yeah you've got the point on wasted money instead of performance. For the time being I only want to upgrade mobo/cpu/ram purchasing components one at a time so budgeting is no big issue. 

 

I'd be more precise on what I intend to buy but again, given no stocks it is a bit hard right now to really pic a choice. 

For now, I can tell I'm looking for a mid range mobo in matte Black, so was looking to MSI (A-Pro, Tomahawk, carbon: no dragons on those boards.. ) or Gigabyte Gaming X, all B550, paired probably with a Ryzen 5 5600: I'm not looking and don't need a monster in performance, just a good mid/high end platform that allows me to face some good 6 to 8 yrs as my old i5 3570k has. 

 

Would be X470 a better option? 

 

And do you know any good RGBW addressable strips? That might change my board preference.. 

 

Thanks a lot! 

[HanZie82]

2 minutes ago, Fulcrum93. said:

Hi Han, thanks for the reply! 

Yeah you've got the point on wasted money instead of performance. For the time being I only want to upgrade mobo/cpu/ram purchasing components one at a time so budgeting is no big issue. 

 

I'd be more precise on what I intend to buy but again, given no stocks it is a bit hard right now to really pic a choice. 

For now, I can tell I'm looking for a mid range mobo in matte Black, so was looking to MSI (A-Pro, Tomahawk, carbon: no dragons on those boards.. ) or Gigabyte Gaming X, all B550, paired probably with a Ryzen 5 5600: I'm not looking and don't need a monster in performance, just a good mid/high end platform that allows me to face some good 6 to 8 yrs as my old i5 3570k has. 

 

Would be X470 a better option? 

 

And do you know any good RGBW addressable strips? That might change my board preference.. 

 

Thanks a lot! 

Im not to versed with all the newest tech so take with a bit of salt or wait for someone more informed.

 

But as for mobo i would shurely get B550 or higher and not go for a X470 even tho they pretty good. (for Ryzen 5xxx)

 

(I do know the mobo i got Gigabyte Aurox X470 it has 3 different types of RGB header. But when i connected my adresable lights it would only be set to a static color no individual lights were controlled trough that. And overal i find Gigabytes software and RGB implementation utterly lacking. Im not sure if others are better).

 

I do not know any specific good aRGBW strips. I bought mine as cheap as i could from China. hehehehe. (made my own controller using an arduino, still connected to PC but a good controller opens up doors, ambilight-like behaviour is not a problem anymore. )

[Fulcrum93.]

On 12/27/2020 at 5:52 PM, HanZie82 said:

Im not to versed with all the newest tech so take with a bit of salt or wait for someone more informed.

 

But as for mobo i would shurely get B550 or higher and not go for a X470 even tho they pretty good. (for Ryzen 5xxx)

 

(I do know the mobo i got Gigabyte Aurox X470 it has 3 different types of RGB header. But when i connected my adresable lights it would only be set to a static color no individual lights were controlled trough that. And overal i find Gigabytes software and RGB implementation utterly lacking. Im not sure if others are better).

 

I do not know any specific good aRGBW strips. I bought mine as cheap as i could from China. hehehehe. (made my own controller using an arduino, still connected to PC but a good controller opens up doors, ambilight-like behaviour is not a problem anymore. )

One thing I'm not sure: taking into account MSI for example, I like the B550 Tomahawk and the B550 A-PRO. The former has mystic light while the latter does not. Does this mean that if I purchase ram with mystic light compatibility but a mobo without it, I will not be able to set the colour of the ram?