 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 bling-tastic can be very challenging. Fortunately, we're here to help with our ultimate RGB build guide 2021 edition. Crucial has been making high quality RAM and 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 clean and 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've carefully cable-managed 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 three, 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 processors just- 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, give it a little wiggle to make sure everything is seated. Close the latch, and you're 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 in shipping. But you know what you don't need to keep safe in 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.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 8GB, well actually 16GB sticks we found out, at 3200MHz, 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 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 belt 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 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 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? Ha ha! 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 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 8-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, uh, 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, or at least for the CPU 8-pin. Front panel audio is pretty simple. There's a notch in the top right quadrant of it that, uh, makes it so you can't really, unless you really try and mash it, plug it in the wrong way. For the front three fans, 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, uh, 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, 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. Sampron's Rocket Q 2TB 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 that 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 seven, CPU cooler. We went with MSI's Mag Core Liquid 360R. By the way, if you want to see the newer K360 version, make sure to get subscribed so you don't miss out on our upcoming The Only PC You Can Buy build. It's gonna be pretty good. The 1080K 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 LGA 11.5X or 11.5.0, 11.5.1, 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 Bionix P120s from Arctic. These are kind of similar to Lee and Lee's UniFans 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 AIO radiator. Add 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, screw your fans in the rad 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 build is 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 to 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're 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, 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, two eight pin PCI express connectors for our graphics card, one SATA cable, and this little RGB wire. Look at it, 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 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 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 and 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 strip, 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 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 and Lee were still an obvious choice for updated rig. They're overkill. They had 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, snake 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. 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 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 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 arrive 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 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, 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 LT100s for flare, 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 have been able to resist this Marsback M1 keyboard. The frosted acrylic looks so good, and the acrylic pudding caps are gorgeous. 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, OpenRGB 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 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, 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. Not too bad, but the streamer cables are about $45 a pop. The GPU support bracket is $60. We used two light kits and four fans at $20 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. 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, but the dual climate knit material keeps your feet warm during winter and cool during the summer. Their style fits almost any occasion, and some of us are wearing them right now. Also, they're 100% vegan. Get $25 off each shoe using our code LINUSTECHTIPS at checkout, and you can check them out at vessifootwear.com slash LINUSTECHTIPS. We'll have a link 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 Corsair parts instead. We wanted to avoid their proprietary connectors and controllers this time, and it wasn't exactly easy.