Asklemmy

I think there's a fine line to be walked

Personally the only lights on my PC itself are the Ethernet ports on the back, and one little blue power indicator on the front

And since I built it in an HTPC case and stuffed it into my entertainment center, you kind of need to be looking at it from just the right angle to even see those. The case itself is a pretty unassuming black rectangle that looks pretty much like any other piece of AV equipment you might expect to see under a TV. About the size of a normal AV receiver, with a disc drive, a power and reset button, 2 USB ports, and a headphone and microphone jack.

My keyboard is a Keychron Q6 max with side-printed shine-through key caps, and my mouse is a Gameball Thumb (I like trackballs, and it's nice since I'm gaming on the couch so not much convenient flat space to move a mouse around) which has single ring of LEDs around the trackball and a small indicator LED to show the DPI settings on the mouse. Both of those turn off when they're idle, and when they're in use I have them set to a pretty simple spinning color mode.

My setup is in a finished basement and the lights are usually down so it's nice having them light up for the ease of seeing what I'm doing, and the simple color animations aren't too distracting.

Where my lighting excess does come in though is with the Philips hue lights I have synced up to my TV the overhead lights, a light strip behind my tv, and a light tube underneath it. Between that and the surround sound I think it's really immersive for movies and gaming. I think I've hit a good balance of it having some wow factor without being too distracting but opinions will of course vary on that.

When I built my first computer I got a bunch of RGB and loved it, but by the time it was a few months old, I got bored of it and started to view changing the colors and whatnot as a chore more than anything, so when I built my second computer, I went without.

I'll admit to liking the look of some gaming PCs, with a custom loop with clear tubing, colored coolant, coordinated lights; it hits the same way a well done build in Satisfactory does.

I'm not really interested in gaming peripherals like a big chunky mouse with a bunch of angled plates on it trying to look like Gigatron's jock strap. Some RGB can be kind of cool, I kinda wish I could do more useful stuff with it, like I always throught it would be cool to have RGB lighting that varied from blue to red with component temperature or something. I'm not the biggest fan of just unicorn vomit for the sake of unicorn vomit.

I liked the transparent/translucent electronics trend of the 90s and early 2000s, the transparent blue PS2 and green original Xbox models were great.

The modern gamer RGB aesthetic with RGB everything and the jacked up PC cases? I hate it, I think even the light bar on the PS5 is too much. And the new Xbox, I don't even know what it's called series something, it looks terrible.

I think it looks kinda cool, but it's also what everything else is. So the cool factor is a tad diminished.

I'll grab whichever option is cheapest for the specs I need to hit.

I absolutely love the tacky gamer look. I think that most flagship tech these days has a terrible lack of whimsy which makes me a bit sad. Look at back at the old imacs compared to the laptops that apple offers today. Look at the phones of the early 2000s compared to what's currently on offer. It's all straight lines and greyscale now. I do understand that that's a classier look, but I wish there was more out there for people like me who want something that looks a bit more colourful and fun whilst still having good specs.

In my opinion, the gamer aesthetic usually doesn't go hard enough. When my PC is turned off, it's just a black rectangle. But it's the best I can get without breaking the bank or doing something super custom.

I'm just running a stock Framework 13 currently. I do have several older desktops that I plan to get running again at some point. I might consider a new build, but it seems like a waste these days. No RGB for me. The only light I don't mind seeing at night is a dim red. Everything else is obnoxious.

Well once you add LEDs it increases the FPS 30% so yeah.

Personally I prefer for my computer to be an unasuming silent black box that sits under my desk. I go out of my way to remove any lights that I can. RGB for computers seems like lowering for cars. Some people like how it looks but at the extremes it gets really impractical.

I started off with fan grills and led fans and cold cathode lighting way back when.

Now, my gaming PC, which is about due for its 5 yr update again, is in an old antec sonata case from 2008ish. I'll probably splurge on a new one next round, but if it's fancy, it will be one of those unassuming fractal cases with wood.

No lights if I can help it.

I don't like the aesthetic but a lot of my stuff is "gaming" branded for functionality reasons (eg high refresh rate monitor; mice with extra buttons; the mech kb I wanted happened to be gaming branded but I would've bought a keyboard with same specs and price that was not gaming branded). The gaming aesthetic is a bit weird when you think about it.

I'm pretty sure the trend didn't come from nowhere, although like every other fashion most adherents wouldn't have necessarily chosen it in a vacuum.

Whether that makes the preference less valid is an interesting question of it's own.

I turn that shit off asap. I'll put cool stickers on my case or use a low backlight for the keyboard but otherwise why would I want a bunch of distractions from the screen?

I would prefer basic, subtle, black. I don't want rainbows and lights. I'm very function over form.

I'd also rather play a game on medium settings where it runs flawlessly and doesn't make the fans go hard, than at high settings with worse performance.

Now admittedly I'm just a gamer, not a Gamer^TM^, but I personally don't have any interest in the different designs and such; do they look cool sometimes? Sure, but I spend very little time looking at my PC so it's entertaining for the first two hours, and then it's just a chassis. Also I really don't like those annoying LED lights and have to switch them off; I sleep in the same room as my PC and I don't want the lights on at night (I never switch off my PC cause like seriously, who does that?)

Would it serve a streamer more than it would the average person however? Most likely; fans will enjoy glancing at it from time to time, and it'll help add some interest to the average person just flicking through different gamer streams.

I like it :)

As long as the RGB is tuneable into any other color (combination) I'm okay with it. I also like white gaming peripherals more lately. I don't consciously seek gaming esthetics, but if that's the better value I pick it.

oh and someone else mentioned it's childish. good. I miss being childish. there's very little thing I have to do while AdUlTiNg that let's me being childish. so gaming will be childish for me.

im not against leds, but I hate rainbow barf mode. paert of the things I enjoy is uniqueness of builds, via small or big customizations, and adressable rgb helps, but too many people keep it at default which causes too many fucking builds to look the same.

My case is all black, but almost everything these days ships with RGB if it’s a modern gaming part. I set them to the lowest brightness at a dark purple so it barely shows. Anything more than that is too distracting for me.

RGB isn’t something I actively seek, but most thing come with it regardless. I have my gaming PC under my desk on the left side. The case has a glass panel and the light bounces off the TV cabinet next to it. I use Open RGB to set my LEDs to teal and purple inside the case and my Razor mouse. I have a voyager split keyboard that can self-set its RGB without any external app. Long winded way of saying I do customise it so it isn’t too garish, but I only care about backlighting on my keyboard (I still don’t really have home row down)

Generally yes, though I do want it to be functional foremost. My computer is essentially a toy to me. When I press a button on my keyboard and it shoots a wave across my peripherals that is cool to me, or when the lighting is synchronized with what’s happening in game, very neat. People take themselves way too seriously.

i do

end of story :)

fun fact: the chinese nicknamed RGB lighting as "light pollution"

i hate that most of it is half-assed unless you spend twice as much to make it look good.

the current black paint + edgelord logo + generic phrase about gaming + half-brighness rainbow LEDs on 40% of your components in every computer just gets old. if one actually spends a decent amount of money i think it can look good, tho.

I suppose it's down to each individual to decide whether they're more interested in gaming or the looks. For instance, one can be a diehard automobile fan without being super into spoilers, wraps, loud AF mufflers, underlights, etc., right? 😅😶

Guilty as charged.

Edited to add, this is actually a slightly old picture. I have a white GPU now.

Fuck no. It's all disgusting.

I just want rainbow transparent tech back. Let me feel like I am still in the early 2000s.

I like a very small amount of RGB.

I didn't always, I wanted full no color, but the ONLY GPU I could find had just a smidge of RGB in the logo (MSI something 5060 ti) and I like it as a highlight.

RGB that you can dim/disable beats a blaring bright red or blue LED you can’t, other than that I could leave gamer design behind

And I’m happy that backlit keyboards are widespread

I kinda like RGB but not in the pulsating rainbow way how it seems to always be on marketing materials.

I like keeping it to one colour, with the intensity at half. It is nice to change it a few times a year for a fresh look.

The fonts and other stuff, I don't care that much as long as the components are good quality. Maybe subconsciously I would consider design if I had to choose between options that performed and cost relatively equally.

Generally I'm not a fan. Personally I like cold, unassuming industrial stuff.

Something like

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On the contrary. I want my device to be as out of the way and unobtrusive as is possible.

I am but a single humble meatbag that enjoys games and can't speak for all gamers, but I generally dislike the typical "gaming rig" aesthetic. I don't want RGB lights. I don't like ostentatious looking cases or accessories. I do find it tasteless, to reuse your term.

No sleight on those that do though. If that's your style, then enjoy it!

No, RGB is annoying and gets disabled if I have no other choice. It's cheap and tacky looking. Basically anything marketed as 'gaming' in my eyes is sub tier garbage.

My overall view on all products, not just gaming stuff if the more buzzwords and slogans and whatnot a company uses, the less I give a crap about them and will actually actively avoid it. Just means they spend more on nonsensical crap then the actual product.

In short; More marketing budget = less quality product

I think it’s pretty normal for people to want their high end thing to look high end, or whatever high end looks like to them. My PC case is basically a black rectangle with a single pane of glass on one side. It has some rainbow vomit lighting inside that isn’t all customizable with Linux, but my razer mouse mat, mouse, and keyboard all glow a lovely purple, just one static color. My desk, peripherals and case all match in black, so really any color I choose to run with makes for an easy vibe change.

I think maybe a half a dozen people have even seen my pc setup, and I don’t really take visitors back there, so whatever cool looks my setup has are just for me, and I enjoy it.

That said, there is a such thing as it being too busy, too gaudy, etc, so I totally get what you’re saying. My shit is lit up but I still feel like it’s fairly subdued.