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.

Why is almost everyone in this thread just talking about rgb? The OP directly says that this isn’t about rgb

I hate the gamer aesthetic, and I won’t buy a product that adheres to it (unless its an internal component for my PC because i have an opaque case anyway). Rgb lighting can be nice in moderation, as long as it is truly customisable.

Yes, though not to the extreme.

yeah i like the gamer aesthetic

I like minimalist setup, I avoid RGB.

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

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 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.

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 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.

Guilty as charged.

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

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 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’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 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.