- Things have changed over the past few years,
and whether you or I like it or not,
the market has become even more saturated with RGB goodness.
There's everything from cables, to anti-sag brackets,
and putting together a PC that both works
and looks blingtastic can be very challenging.
Fortunately, we're here to help
with our Ultimate RGB Build Guide 2021 Edition.
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(upbeat music)
- Step one, pre-build safety.
We start with the usual tools
and of course, a clean and clear table.
You need a table to build a computer,
and this is not clean and clear.
One moment.
(fast forward screeching)
There we go.
We've done this off camera already,
but I strongly recommend hooking up everything outside.
(quick beep)
We've done this off camera already,
but I strongly recommend hooking everything up
outside the case to ensure
that you haven't gotten any defective parts.
I mean, especially when you're dealing with RGB,
it can be a total pain to find some random light strip
that just doesn't work after
you carefully cable manage everything.
(sighing)
Step to two, motherboard.
Like last time, we've gone with Asus
because Aura Sync offers a good balance between
the low background CPU utilization and ease of use.
And we chose the Zed 590 Maximus 13 Hero,
mostly for its three addressable RGB headers,
since we'll need plenty of those
to power and control our lighting.
Set it on top of the box, like so,
for a makeshift static safe workspace.
And try not to think too hard
about how much you spent on a motherboard
when you could have gotten the same performance
out of a mid range model.
Step three, CPU.
For our CPU, we went with a-
(coughing)
Core i9-10850k in here.
So at the time of filming,
availability of AMD's 5,000 series was still spotty
and Intel's 11th gen processors just, hmm.
How do I put this?
We decided not to use one.
So just pull the latch
and lift up, exposing the CPU socket.
From here, there are actually a couple of different ways
to make sure you're oriented correctly.
Most of you probably use the little golden triangle,
but on Intel, you can also match the two circular notches
up here with the round bumps in the socket.
Place the CPU down gently,
and give it a little wiggle to
make sure everything is seated.
Close the latch.
I'm going to have to put a little bit more pressure
than you might expect to do so.
There we go.
And off pops the socket cover.
Make sure you keep that
in case you need to RMA your board or something,
or even just like sell it later,
because it keeps the pin safe and shipping.
But you know what you don't need to keep safe in shipping?
Our Stealth Pins T-shirt from lttstore.com.
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Step four, memory.
Is there an RGB module out there that looks better
than G.Skill's Trident Z RGB line?
You can let us know in the comments, but we didn't think so.
They're fast.
They're flashy,
and with four eight gigabytes,
or actually these are 16 gigabyte sticks we found out,
at 3,200 megahertz,
you'll have more than enough for modern games,
all at any reasonable price.
Just match the center notch on the module
with the one on the slot to orient it.
Then line it up and push it into place,
making sure you hear a distinct click
on each side to confirm it's seated properly.
Refer to your motherboard manual
if you're using fewer modules,
or if you have more slots
to ensure they go into the right ones.
It's usually A2 and B2 for dual channel,
but you never know when someone's going to think different.
Step five, the case.
The infinity window in our last RGB build guide was cool,
but we wanted something that keeps our system thermals
under control, while also showing off the RGB power supply
that we'll be installing later.
The P 500 A Digital from Phanteks
ticks all these boxes.
It's built in lighting and fans
are easy to hook into the rest of our system,
and the light strip along the side looks just plain cool.
It's a great choice if you're on a bit of a budget
but still want to show off.
Pop off the tempered glass panel
and remove the case's accessories box.
It's held in there by a nice little strap.
How thoughtful.
It's big, actually.
That's a bigger accessory kit than I would've thought.
Our IO shield is built into the board,
but if yours isn't, make sure you install it now.
It can not be done later.
Now, we'll check that the standoffs are
in the right positions and place our motherboard on top
and screw in the nine screws here, here, here, here,
here, here, here, here,
and, Oh, wait.
Where's our last mount point?
(laughing)
Some motherboards have coolers or armor plates
that cover them.
While it's okay to simply leave those screws out sometimes,
it's really important to flip the board over
and verify that there's an actual hole there
because if there isn't,
you need to remove that standoff from the case
to prevent the back of the board from being damaged.
Now is also the best time to plug in
all of your front panel connectors,
since it will only get more difficult to access them
as you install more components.
Thankfully for the Phanteks P 500 A,
there's only one front panel connector
you need to worry about,
and that is the power switch.
That plugs into the top right of this bank of pins here.
After that, we need to worry about our power and our fans.
So let's start with the power.
We have two eight pin power connectors of the top here.
Now we probably don't need all of that right now,
but it's good to have it all plugged in,
just so we have a, no, just 'cause.
It is by far much easier to do it now
than after we have the radiator installed,
so let's go ahead and do it.
We just line up the tabs here
and click them in.
Unfortunately, these cables do not click together,
so might have to do one at a time for easier insertion.
But once we've done that,
we can just pull it out through the back holes there,
and we are good for power,
at least for the CPU eight pin.
Front panel audio is pretty simple.
There's a notch in the top right quadrant of it
that makes it so you can't really,
unless you really try and mash it,
plug it in the wrong way.
For the front three pins,
we have a fan splitter.
And we're going to plug all of those into the one header
down at the bottom of the motherboard.
For our extra rear fan,
which we're going to install separately,
we have this CPU optional connector up here.
That kind of ties it to the CPU cooler,
so this whole area, as it heats up,
should get a little bit more exhaust as necessary.
Next we have USB three.
The standard USB 3.0 connector
on this motherboard is at a right angle,
so that's perfect for cable management.
You just lined it up with the notch and slip it in.
Be careful.
They like to break.
I know this.
Ask me how I know this.
The much better connector is the USB 3.1 Gen two connector,
or the type C connector.
That plugs into the motherboard, just like this.
Although unfortunately,
every motherboard I've seen so far
has had them coming straight up out of the middle,
like this, which is less than ideal.
The final connection we're going to make for now
is the addressable RGB connection.
That's a three pin five volt cable,
and we have a three-way splitter coming off of it for now.
Directly plugged into the splitter is this
Arctic cooling fan that we just installed.
And we'll also be plugging in these three fans
in the front that are daisy chained together
and the fans for our liquid cooler.
One thing to note about these connections though,
is that they are really loose.
They tend to wobble a lot,
even when they're fully plugged in.
I would recommend some electrical tape
or something to kind of hold them together
when you connect these daisy chained
or split connections like this.
Step six, storage.
While there are RGB SSDs out there,
with all the M.2 slots covered by motherboard armor,
we felt it was okay to go
for something a little bit more practical.
Sabrent's Rocket Q two terabyte is only
PCI express gen three, but then so is our CPU,
and it offers a strong mix
of performance, capacity, and price.
If you do have a gen four capable system and drive,
be sure to consult your motherboard manual
to find the appropriate gen four slot,
and always populate slots that go directly
to the CPU before ones that are routed
through the motherboard chip set.
Remove the heat sink if there is one,
and if there's no pre-installed standoff,
now's the time to fish that out of your motherboard box
and screw it in.
Then just line up the notches, shimmy the drive in,
push it down under the standoff,
and screw it down with one of these teeny tiny M.2 screws.
In some cases, the heat sink might hold it in place,
so you can skip that step and put the armor back on
if you have a motherboard that's like that.
Step seven, CPU cooler.
We went with MSI's Mag CoreLiquid 360r.
By the way, if you want to see the new 4k 360 version,
make sure to get subscribed,
so you don't miss out on an upcoming,
The Only PC You Can Buy Build.
It's going to be pretty good.
The 10A50K gets hot, but a 360 millimeter rad like this
should be enough to keep the heat dissipated.
Since we're using an Intel processor,
we'll need the mounting bracket and backplate
that look like this and the mounting hardware
that looks like this.
If you're trying to find the right stuff,
your cooler manual should say something like LGA115X
or 1150, 1151,
but LGA 1200 uses the same system
if you have a newer processor like this.
Now we're going to mount our fans.
We're going to use these Bionics P120s from Arctic.
These are kind of similar to Lian-Li's uni fans
in that you can daisy chain them together
without extra wiring, which is super cool.
You just need to add this little bridge connector
if they're going to be next to each other
like on our 360 millimeter AAI radiator.
And the power cable to the side that makes the most sense
for your wiring situation.
For ours, we're going to put it on the side opposite
of the soft tubing because the power plug gets in the way.
And then you just add your bridge connectors
for your fans in the red with the long radiator screws,
like so, then screw the whole thing into the top of the case
with the short radiator screws, like so.
Linus asked me to point out that push fan configurations
like this one can be a nightmare to clean.
I told them the theme of the build is RGB,
not allergy safe, so too bad.
Actually, I have a fix for that.
Benadryl.
Now for the CPU block.
MSI's system kind of sucks,
but bear with me.
We'll begin by installing our Intel bracket.
Then we run these bolts to the CPU back plate,
add one set of washers,
put all four bolts through the motherboard,
being sure that the screw ends of the CPU socket back plate
don't interfere with our cooler back plate.
I told you this sucks.
Next, add four spacers like this
and position the CPU block like so,
making sure not to accidentally knock the bolts out
as you do.
It's a little tricky, but you are almost there.
Finally, attach your block,
ensuring first there's no plastic
over the pre-applied thermal paste by tightening the
four spring-loaded thumb nuts.
Step eight, power supply.
Like our motherboard,
we went a bit overkill on the power supply,
but we did it for the RGB.
To be clear, the Asus ROG Thor 1200 watt Platinum
is a really good unit,
but at $320 for a cool little screen
and it shows how much wattage it's using
and RGB lighting on the side,
it's probably not the best use of your stimulus check.
To wire it up, we'll start by removing the mounting bracket
on the back, screwing it onto the back of our power supply
with these screws, and pulling through
the dual eight pin CPU connectors
we cable managed earlier.
Then we add our 24 pin motherboard connector
to our pin PCI express connectors for our graphics card,
one SATA cable, and this little RGB wire.
Look at it.
It's it's so tiny,
but oh, so essential.
From here, we'll slide in the rest of the power supply
right side up so the display can be seen through the window,
and screw it into the back of the case.
Done deal.
Step nine, GPU.
These days, more and more manufacturers are including plenty
of RGB on their GPU's,
and Asus Strix cards are no exception.
Maybe that's why they're selling out.
The RGB appeal has become too strong
for everyone to resist, right?
We felt like our counter-culture Intel PC
wouldn't be complete without an EMB graphics card,
and went for a Radeon RX 6800.
Thankfully, all the RGB is powered and controlled
through the standard eight pin power connectors
and the PCI express slot.
Take out the PCI express slot covers
that would otherwise be in the way,
line the connector up with the slot,
then push it firmly into place
until you see the lock at the back latch on.
Now, just replace the thumb screws that were holding
in the PCI express slot covers, ad you're good to go.
Step 10, the all important lighting.
To add extra lighting to our machine,
we're using another Phanteks product:
their Digital RGB Neon LED kit.
This thing looks awesome.
The light diffusion on it is great,
and you can arrange the strips pretty easily
with the included clips and VHB tape.
They're plenty bright
and connect with a standard three pin five volt ARGB header.
Like seriously, if you can get these instead
of your standard LED strip
with all the exposed invisible LEDs, do it.
They're more expensive at roughly $20 per script,
but they look a lot better.
Now, the way we're going to lay these out
is this 500 millimeter one,
we're going to wrap around the motherboard.
And then the two piece combo set here,
we're going to use to light off the PCI express slots.
Our next bit of lighting kit released shortly
after our first RGB build guide,
so they're are a few years old now,
but strimer cables from Lian-Li
were still an obvious choice for updated rig.
They're overkill.
They got a bunch of cabling to manage,
but like look at them go.
Aren't they beautiful?
Simply attach them to the end of your PCI express
and ATX power cables like any extension,
and plug them into their designated headers.
Connect them to their controller,
and plug the controller into an ARGB header.
They're pretty stiff,
so it's not always going to be easy getting them into place,
but once you do, they look amazing.
Now, unless you're daisy chaining everything together,
chances are you're going to have issues getting
the exact sequence right for your lighting.
That's where a little box like this comes in.
This is from Cooler Master,
and it has clearly indicated ARGB header addresses here.
So we have A1, A2, A3, A4.
All we need to do is make sure that we line those up
with exactly how we want everything to look on the case,
and we should have everything all in one go.
Once we have everything lined up,
then we can just plug it directly into an ARGB header
on the motherboard, no extra software or anything required.
It'll work as though it's all daisy chained.
Our final piece of internal lighting
is this RGB GPU anti-sag bracket from Cooler Master.
Yes, it's entirely unnecessary,
but isn't that kind of what this whole build is about?
Attach the right plastic clip
depending on where you want to place it.
Either this guy, if you're putting it somewhere
in the middle of the case,
or this one if you're putting it on the end.
Then stick the RGB connector through the most
accessible cutout based on where you want it,
and use the magnet to stick it in place.
Slide the clip up to the GPU, then lock it.
Trust me.
It's going to look awesome when it's turned on.
Step 11.
Mm Hm.
11, cable management.
Exactly as difficult as holding up 11 fingers
with this RGB laden build.
We have plenty of devices, but only three ARGB headers.
The strimer cables add more cable length to deal with,
and we've already got a mess on our hands
thanks to our controller hubs that can go
into either an addressable RGB or USB header
if you decide to do the sensible thing
and save a buck on your motherboard.
Two things will help immensely here:
labeling and planning ahead.
We have a SATA powered ARGB hub
for the power hungry lights and a four way ARGB splitter
for the devices that need less juice.
The powered hub is going to get the strimer cables,
front fans, light strips, and CPU block light.
On the splitter,
we're putting the anti-sag bracket, rear fan,
and radiator fans.
Our third and final header gets
the tiny, two pin power supply cable.
This will work for us
because we're not designing any custom patterns or anything,
and the P500A digitals front fans arrived wired together.
We can still easily change each component
to our heart's content.
We made a simple wiring diagram to help keep things sorted,
strapped down our non RGB wiring to keep it out of the way,
then plugged everything in.
Keeping runs clean and controllers out of the way
is the real challenge,
so feel free to use plenty of zip ties and cable ties.
For the controllers, double-sided tape works best,
but you can sometimes manage
to either tuck them out of the way
or place them into the provided case straps.
Once everything is done, this part is entirely optional,
but you will save yourself a lot
of potential future headache
if you take the time now to label everything
or at least label major sections of cables.
If you're a monster,
you can grab some of those twist tie labels
you can find in grocery stores near the bulk bins.
Just write what it is and twist tie it to your...
Do you steal labels from the grocery store?
- [Man] Uh.
- Now that everything's tidied up
with paid for cable ties from lttstore.com,
we can take a moment to appreciate the solid cable
management potential of the P500A digital
before it's time for the moment of truth.
Ah, delayed reaction.
It's actually kind of amazing how the color is more
or less matched with everything.
Usually RGB stuff is like, ah, this is red,
but this is also red, and this is red,
and there's like three different reds.
And it's like,
I asked for exactly the same red.
Step 12, peripherals.
For outside of the case and on the desk,
we went almost exclusively with Corsair.
A pair of LT100s for flair,
an ST100 stand for a place to rest our
Virtuoso RGB wireless headset, and an MM700 RGB desk pad.
This gives us a total of two RGB control applications
that need to be installed on our PC,
which is what I would say
if I had been able to resist this Marsback M1 keyboard.
The frosted acrylic looks so good,
and the acrylic pudding caps are gorgeous.
That Gamers Nexus's video investigating
the CPU usage of various RGB applications
found that the more you have,
the more the overhead piles up,
but look at this thing.
That brings us to step 13, software.
Now there are two RGB programs that can control all
of these devices: Open RGB and JackNet.
However, some devices are just too new to work,
so we're limited to the official stuff for now.
Because we went strictly with
the three pin five volt ARGB headers,
syncing our lighting is actually pretty easy.
Our motherboard is Asus,
so we'll get Armoury Crate installed,
and then it should find all of our devices automagically,
letting us choose from any of the stock animations
or design our own with the Aura creator.
And then we can spend all of our time gazing
at our finished creation,
rather than, you know,
actually playing games like some kind of loser.
For our Corsair desktop peripherals,
IQ is the way to go.
And you know, once it's all configured,
I kind of hate to admit how cool everything,
like, especially these light towers, can look.
They do nothing, but they look so good.
(upbeat music)
Beautiful, just beautiful.
But what did it cost?
Going with the RGB version of any given hardware
typically adds 10 to $20.
Not too bad,
but the strimer cables are about 45 bucks a pop.
The GPU support bracket is $60.
We used two light kits and four fans at 20 bucks each.
So that's $120.
The Corsair light towers are $130 for the starter kit,
which does include two,
but then the headphone stand is another $70.
The desk pad is $60 and the keyboard is 180,
if you get the Kickstarter early bird special
or 199 if you don't.
(loud sigh)
That is about $500 without the keyboard for pretty lights.
Is it worth it?
No, but we won't judge
much.
Just like we won't judge you
for checking out our sponsor, Vessi.
Vessi footwear is known for being waterproof.
They're lightweight and breathable,
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The style fits almost any occasion,
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Also, they're are a hundred percent vegan.
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We'll have it linked below.
There you have it,
the 2021 RGB Build Guide.
Do you love RGB or hate it?
Let us know in the comments,
and check out our Ultimate RGB Guide from 2017
if you plan on going with Corsiar parts instead.
We wanted to avoid their proprietary connectors
and controllers this time, and it wasn't exactly easy.