Guilty as charged.

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

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

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

Something like

OR

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.

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 think the industry still thinks their target audience is 12 year olds. It's evident also in the aesthetic of the games they make. That being said I am seeing a slow change for the better. If only I could say the same about the prices...

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 hate it. I resent that I have to get an app to turn off the horrible lights in the computer and peripherals.

I would like it if it was subtle, maybe a few thin rgb lines around the main board like traces, and something similar on other components.

I hate the everything blaring random lights look, its like a kids attempt to draw attention, it works but when you look you wish you hadn't.

The eye grabbing lights and glass covers are fucking idiotic. My best builds are black towers, great airflow, minimal lights, and barely any noise. I'm focused on the game, not the machine.

The thing needs to be forgotten. It's not the center of attention. The monitor is.

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 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!

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 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.

The wonders of marketing making people believe that RGB vomit is desirable.

The only LED i care about is white.

I'm over 30, but even when i was in my early 20s I couldn't stand the blaring lights. A HS friend built up a rig with full flashy RGB shit and I was like "why?" - He thought it was cool, possibly still does.

I mean, I'm supposed to look at the monitor, not the fan or the mouse. Keyboard blacklight is good, tho, so long as it's not red nor a dancing rainbow. Yellow or white are the best kb backlight imo

Some gamers do. Like most humans they are attracted to bright, flashy patterns of colors. (most animals actually are). But most mature gamers I know, would rather put some money in better equipment, than flashy colors. So, gamers are as different as the rest of us. Some are caught by the hype, some are not. You see it in cars too. Some like bling, som focus on the actual car.

Me? I like RGB in my keyboards backlight. I don't like it to flash, but I like to make it an orange/reddish color, because that's easy on the eyes, when using your computer at evenings or nights. That's about it.

I spent extra to not have any components with RGB. The only lighting I find tolerable is white (!) LEDs.

I was looking for something with a nicge natural wood finish. LED is dine but no blinking fading, just a solid line without any distraction.

I appreciate the gamer aesthetic when scientists need to buy gear with the power to run scientific calculations for relatively cheap. The RGB lights under the case windows bring a bit of pizzazz to the laboratory.

I have a keyboard that lights up because I like to type in the dark and my dexterity isn't what it used to be but that's about it. I would've preferred a solid color but RGB was all I found. Not a bad for $20, it's a solid steel frame

Oh, right. No the "gamer ascetic" is garish as fuck. I just want something that works.

I was into it in the early days but got over it quickly. Now I want the opposite and minimize attention my PC draws to itself. Its just pointless and kind of annoying. It was impressive back when it was new and challenging but now its just an element of marketing, and one that I've come to strongly dislike in my builds.

Yep. I'm the (apparently minority) weirdo that LOVES the rainbow vomit lights. I have lights everywhere on my computer and desk and it brings me so much joy. It just feels happy to me to have the bright rainbow colors slowly shifting. I find it delightful and will pay extra to ensure devices are not only rainbow capable, but are the right type of rainbow (slow shifting) that I love. My side of our gaming office drives my husband nuts. I regret nothing!

im for whatever is cheap and effective, only performance to cost ratio matters to me.

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 do

end of story :)

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

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 dont care much for RGB in everything.

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.

I bought RGB crap once. It stayed on while the PC was in standby mode. Never again.

I was riding the first RGB bling bling wave back in the early 2ks and after a while I got sooooooooooooo annoyed by every light my PC emitted.

Same today.

I give a frog about RGB and when I bought my actual PCs back in early 2024 I used an old Chieftec case I had standing around for the first and bought a cheap case of Amazon that has no glass.

Both stand in a way that air can circulate and the PC stays cool, but light is blocked.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

I like minimalist setup, I avoid RGB.

back in my day those were case mods. i disable that shit immediately

The only RGB I run is for my keyboard and only because I sit in a dark room and everything is black, so it can be difficult to see where the keyboard is. Back when I ran a regular mouse I also had an RGB mouse for the same reason, but carpal tunnel forced a trackball so now the mouse never moves and it no longer needs RGB.

My gaming pc lives in a soundproof cupboard 5m away without a case because quietness is more important to me than any visual element, so any RGB thing gets avoided, or turned off.

I can appreciate a very colour coordinated and well put together "gaming" computer in a purely aesthetic sense. Some are genuinely pretty and I get that some folk take a lot of pleasure out of making something that looks beautiful and best of luck to them. But I'm not one of them.

My take, I was a gamer when I was young, when a 386 was gaming for me and till today when a 4090 is gaming for me, but I prefer normal looking shit without RGB. My 4090 colours allow me to set it to one shade of blue that I like, but I’ll be happy with a closed unit without any colour as well. What I would prefer, over colours, is free time to actually game :/

I hate those lights so much. I only want one light on my entire computer it should be right next to the on button to let me know it's on. That's it. I had that. It was wonderful. Then when I upgraded my graphics card it came with a light and now the thing glows green and I hate it. And don't get me started on the stupid Mouse.

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.

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? 😅😶

I've been a PC gamer for 32 years now. I do enjoy having a clear side panel. I've had one for 22 years. That way you can show off whatever you have inside. I don't use RGB or any kind of lighting. I just think clear electronics are cool, you can see how they are made.

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 was into it when I was a teenager, then got over it quickly. This was before RGB programmable lighting was even available, you had to buy your own individual LEDs that didn't change color.

Also this was the era where CGI anime girls and/or robofrogs were plastered on the GPU and cases had giant useless hunks of plastic to make it look like constipated Transformer so... in all honesty it's probably gotten better.

I used to be against it, then my PC died in the early COVID days and the only (practical) way I could get a future-proofed replacement was to get a pre-built, and they all had RGB.

From there, though, it grew on me. Like so many other things I enjoy about working with computers, the learning process was just super enjoyable for me.

I read about different standards (RGB vs aRGB, 3 pins vs 4 pins, this module or that one, this software vs that), tried a few things, and got it looking like I wanted. Now I'm using OpenRGB to make my own patterns that match the room or the weather or whatever wallpaper I've got. Turning understanding into control and self-expression just feels good man.

I don't care much about my case and the internals but you can pry my flowing; gradient; pink, purple, and blue-lit peripherals, with gold ripples after a key or mouse click, from my dead hands. It's the little things that make me not want to eject out of my chair when dealing with work shit. I feel like a golden bi wizard when I'm at my desk

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.

My gaming computer is in an old 4 unit rack mount server case. I think there is some sort of RGB nonsense on the motherboard, but you can't see it once the computer is racked.

Fuck RGB shit.

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.

Even as a nongamer I appreciate the stylistic aspects of gaming computers, but tbh if I were going to buy one I'd probably put the money into better specs and a plain case.

I got a plain black case without a window. I used to have Razer KB+Mouse but after a deathadder and viper died I'm trying a logitech mouse, the matched RGB was nice at first but I lost interest in it.

I bought a RGB mouse a few months ago, tried it out for a few hours, got annoyed by the bright lights at night and turned off the lights.

For some reason, the Roccat software messed up and now it flashes green when clicking the middle mouse button (I couldn't even find an option in the software to make it do that), but that's kinda cool, so I kept it.

My computer is a sleeper build in an old server steel case. No RGB anywhere, and as a bonus, I can even sit on it, if I want. :D

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.

Gamer here, I do like my setup RGB matching the same color (Red)

But only because something has RGB does not mean I'll buy it. RGB ≠ Quality

On a personal level, I don't like the see through towers or really basically any RGB. I have a keyboard that has RGB and if I could turn it off while also being able to see the keys properly, I would turn it off. It's currently at the lowest setting I can do it and still see the keys.

Also not a fan of the super fancy schmancy gaming mice because I'm a firm believer trackball mice are superior.

No opinion on gaming headsets other than the ones with the attached mic are stupid looking. Design of headphones and such are slightly less important to me than the sound quality, so I can let some dumb designs slide if the quality is fantastic.

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.

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)

My PC is RGB because it was cheaper that way. If I had the budget for what I really wanted, my PC would be made of translucent plastic; probably orange or purple.

We went from boring beige PC cases, that looked rather boring and were in dire need of some stylish upgrades, in the complete other direction and overshot the target by a mile. I find most modern PC stuff incredible ugly and impractical. Even just finding a tower that still has a 5.25" slot took effort, since most don't even have them anymore. The whole idea of transparent windows on your case or putting your PC on the desk instead of below it, is complete nonsense, especially when you don't even have room for swappable disk drives. The good old desktop PC at least went under your monitor, but modern PC cases don't even do that.

I am kind of surprised, despite all those decades of PC gaming, we still don't have gaming PCs as compact as a Playstation/Xbox. They do exist, e.g. the old Alienware Steam Machine was tiny, but they are far from common place and often either underpowered or overpriced.

I like it :)

I think a lot of people like the customization that rainbow RGB more than anything else.

I fucking hate RGB. Not only because it's not well supported in Linux but because I sleep in the same room as my computer. I won't buy components with RGB if I have the choice.

Yes, though not to the extreme.

I like my stuff hidden anyway so I don't care all to much. I disable leds usually because they are distracting but keep one solid led to indicate whether the system is on or not.

Flame decal 🔥🔥🔥 I thought it was cool 10 years ago, Now my actual setup is black and blue light

I think a lot of these designs probably appeal to the early teen demographic who are begging their parents for their first gaming computer. My tower has one glass side because I like being able to see my components, but I didnt find any RGB necessary. Some of the colorful see through cases are quite pretty when arranged. I don't understand why mice have to look like bionicles though.

I really could care less what it looks like. It just needs to be functional/practicle

I don't really prefer it. I just buy gaming mice because they have more buttons and disable the RGB.

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.

I don't really like it, but sometimes those types of cases are the only good ones with radiator clearance in a relatively small footprint.

I still miss this one, it was all metal and very close to an Apple G5 case, minus the compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, this case also couldn't support radiators in any meaningful capacity, so I had to sell it. Currently using a Lian li case that I dislike, but it has damn good radiator support, and my PC is now completely silent.

I like the stuff because my kids like all the rainbow effects. Normally while working or gaming I will set the effects to be off though.

Personally I don’t care for the trend that is RGB EvReyWhERe!!1!1! MoRe!1!1! Especially in what amounts to pretty normal cases. Just a box with a bunch of bolt on lights and fans. Yay?

I far more admire a computer where someone has taken the time to actually invest some customization that took skill. Bending watercool hard tubing around a hand made or modified case. Lights are fine for accent or drama, but not as a misrepresentation of uniqueness or effort.

I got fractal design r6 because it’s dampens noise quite well. There was an option for a glass panel, but I got the solid one instead because it insulates sound better.

i want plain computers back.

so uh i built my gaming pc in an old Lenovo Think tower. no tempered glass or RGB. i just want it to work idc how it looks

I fucking love it, how I get to have a subtle moving pride flag on the side of me. Have trans colours on my kb.

I like some of it, but not everything. Customizable is good, but if it's all preloaded and unmodifiable then it's more a mockery of self-expression, isn't it?

got a pc with a good deal. First thing I did was electrically cut off all unnecessary leds

i am a non-serious gamer, and I really don't care. i'm looking at the game, not the computer or console.

Some like it and some dislike it. A lot of it can be changed or turned off anyway, so most just pick what they like.

Then there are the RBG-phobes. They talk about it like it's the devils work and seemingly get upset if other people have it in the privacy of their own home.

I spent a few $1000 on the computer, I’ll spend $100 more to make it look fancy

Well there’s gamers and there’s PC gamers. PC gamers are borderline toxic, very tribal and look down at everyone