LED Lighting

What RGB Lighting is Available for PC?

In addition to components having integrated RGB lighting, there are LED strip kits, extension cables, and LED nodes that can be used to customise your gaming PC. The RGB LED strip kits and nodes are purely decorative, interfacing either via a control hub or your motherboard with 3-pin or 4-pin headers. Extension cables are used to connect various hardware to your motherboard, such as graphics cards.

There are many great brands available at PCCG for you to explore, including Corsair, Lian Li, Phanteks, and CableMod. They offer a wide range of accessories covering every possible need you may have for RGB LED lights.

How Do I Install LED Strips?

Most LED lighting kits will, thankfully, come with instructions on how to properly install them within your gaming PC. Usually, they are held in place either by magnetic strips or 3-M adhesive tape. Being modular in nature, the installation of your LED strips is incredibly easy. What’s more, the fit of these strips can often be customised with the use of included extension cables, allowing you to place the lighting exactly where you want it.

How Do I Control RGB LED Lighting?

There are a number of ways one can control their RGB lighting. Firstly, there is software such as Asus Aura Sync or MSI Mystic Light. Which software you install will usually depend on which motherboard or main platform you buy - and do keep in mind they are not all cross compatible. Major platform brands typically have their own software ecosystem, whereas others will denote which package they are compatible with (often multiple). Utilising this interface, you can customise colours and effects using either the presets or your own creativity.

Alternatively, many LED kits come with an RGB controller. At the push of a button, you can adjust the colour and scroll through preset effects without having to go into software. This is especially useful for external lighting that you may want to control whilst not using your computer.

Finally, there are RGB Control Hubs, which act as a one-stop shop for all the RGB accessories across your gaming PC. These come equipped with PWM, 6-pin ports for fans as well as 3-pin aRGB or 4-pin RGB connectors and more. Usually, these will connect to your motherboard and can be controlled using either software or an included remote.

What Other Lighting Is Available?

Of course, there are more accessories than RGB LED lights for inside your chassis. For those who stream or enjoy gaming in ambient lighting, there are LED key lights and panels to make your streams much more professional. These can be controlled using an app on your smartphone or via your gaming PC.

Additionally, there are different types of RGB lighting to explore as well. Standard lighting is RGB, short for Red, Green, and Blue, which are the three colours that can be mixed to create a near-endless spectrum of colours. With standard RGB LEDs, they can be set to show any one of these colours, but are limited to show only one across the strip. Alternatively, there are ARGB (sometimes called D-RGB) lighting, which means Addressable RGB lighting. This method allows you to light each LED individually and create a full rainbow whilst also offering more stunning lighting effects. Some advanced software like Corsair’s iCUE and NZXT’s CAM will allow you to manually change individual LED’s to your liking for amazing unique lighting setups!