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 crucial has been making high quality ramen ssds for
over 20 years and with their crucial system scanner tool finding the perfect
parts for your system is now easier than ever check out crucial at the link down
below
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 cleaning clear one moment
there we go we've done this off camera already but i strongly recommend hooking
up everything outside
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 to manage
everything step two
motherboard like last time we've gone with ASUS because aura sync offers a good balance
between low background CPU utilization and ease of use and we chose the z590
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 3 CPU for our CPU we went with a
core i9 10850k in here
so at the time of filming availability of AMD's 5000 series was still spotty
and Intel's 11th gen processor is just
uh how do i put this uh 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 give it a little wiggle to make sure everything is seated
close the latch and gonna 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 ARM in
your board or something or even just like sell it later because it keeps the
pins safe and shipping but you know what you don't need to keep safe and shipping
our stealth pins t-shirt from lttstore.com get yours today step four
memory is there an RGB module out there that
looks better than g skills tried nz 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 well actually these are 16 Gigabyte
sticks we found out at 3200 megahertz you'll have more than enough for modern
games all at a 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 distinct click
on each side to confirm it 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 5 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 p500a digital from
fantax 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 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 have
thought our i o shield is built into the board but if yours isn't make sure you
install it now it cannot 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 uh
wait where's our last mount point
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 fantax p500a 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 at 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 just just just cuz
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 cpu8 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 3. the
standard usb 3.0 connector on this motherboard is at a right angle so
that's perfect for cable management you just line it up with a 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 2 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
uh 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 severance rocket q 2
terabyte is only pci express gen 3 but then so is our CPU and it offers a
strong mix of performance capacity and price if you do have a gen 4 capable system
and drive be sure to consult your motherboard manual to find the appropriate gen 4 slot and always
populate slots to go directly to the CPU before ones that are routed through the
motherboard chipset remove the heatsink if there is one and
if there's no pre-installed standoff now is 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 onto the standoff and screw it down with one of these
teeny tiny m.2 screws in some cases the
heatsink 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 7 CPU cooler we went with
MSI's mag core liquid 360r by the way if you want to see the new rk 360 version
make sure to get subscribed so you don't miss out on our upcoming the only pc you
can buy build it's going to be pretty good the 10850k
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 back plate 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 lga 115x 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 bionx p120s from arctic these are kind of similar to lee
lee's unifans and 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 aor radiator add the power cable to the side that makes the
most sense for your wiring situation for hours 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 screw 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 him the theme of the builds RGB not allergy safe
so too bad actually i have a fix for that
benadryl now for the CPU block MSI 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 backplate don't interfere with our cooler backplate
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 thumbnuts 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 dollars for a cool
little screen it shows how much wattage it's using and RGB lighting on the side
is 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 8-pin CPU connectors we cable managed earlier then
we add our 24-pin motherboard connector two 8-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 9 GPU
these days more and more manufacturers are including plenty of RGB on their
gpus and ASUS strix cards are no
exception maybe that's why they're selling out like the RGB appeal has
become too strong for everyone to resist right we felt like our counterculture Intel pc
wouldn't be complete without an AMD graphics card and went for a Radeon rx
6800 thankfully all the RGB is powered and
controlled through the standard 8-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 and you're good to go
step 10 the all-important lighting
to add extra lighting to our machine we're using another fantex 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 vhp tape they're plenty bright and connect with a standard 3 pin 5 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 twenty dollars per script but they look a lot better now the way
they'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 up the pci express slots our next bit of lighting kit released
shortly after our first RGB build guide so they're a few years old now but
streamer cables from lee lee were still an obvious choice for updated rig
they're overkill they add 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 stake
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
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 streamer 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 santa
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 streamer
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
digital's 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 run do you steal
labels from the grocery store
now that everything's tied it up with paid for cable ties from lttstore.com we
can take a moment to appreciate the solid cable management potential of the p 500 day digital before it's time for
the moment of truth
delayed reaction it's actually kind of amazing how the
color is more or less matched with everything usually RGB stuff is like uh
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 the case and on the desk we went almost exclusively with Corsair a
pair of lt-100s for flair an st-100
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 have been able to resist this
mars back m1 keyboard the frosted acrylic looks so good
and the acrylic pudding caps are gorgeous
the gamer's nexus 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 3 pin
5 volt argb headers syncing our lighting is actually pretty easy our motherboard
is ASUS so we'll get armory crate installed then it should find all of our
devices automatically 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 like they do nothing but they look so good
beautiful just beautiful
but what did it cost going with the RGB version of any given
hardware typically adds 10 to 20 dollars not too bad but the streamer 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 a hundred and thirty dollars for the starter kit
which does include two but then the headphone stand is another seventy
dollars the desk pad is sixty dollars and the keyboard is 180 if you get the
kickstarter early bird special or 199 if you don't
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
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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 Corsair parts instead we
wanted to avoid their proprietary connectors and controllers this time
and it wasn't exactly easy