Those of you who are familiar with modern computing hardware must know that most of them come with many customization options. This includes lighting options in computer hardware which allows you to set colors to any color theme that you may like.
As a result, you can make your computer look one of a kind and exactly according to your taste in terms of the colors. However, this lighting is found in computers including RGB lighting as well as ARGB lighting where both of them are great in their own place. But if you want to choose the best one for your computer, then check out this detailed comparison between ARGB vs RGB lighting given down below.
How Does RGB Work?
Before checking any differences between ARGB vs RGB lighting, you should first know more about these lighting setups and how exactly they work. Starting with the simpler RGB lighting, it stands for red green blue. This means that any given LED light will have three different color diodes, which offer red, green, and blue colored light respectively.
And with the combination of these three color diodes, RGB lights can offer a total of 16.7 million colors depending on the lights that you are using. However, RGB lights do have a limitation that all of the connected lights need to be the same color. There is no way of individually controlling each LED unit of a RGB lighting setup.
How Does ARGB Work?
If you are having issues with the previously mentioned limitation of RGB lighting, then you will find ARGB lighting to be just perfect. This is due to the reason that similar to RGB lighting, the RGB in ARGB also stands for red green blue. But since there is an additional A at the beginning, that stands for addressable.
And if you can’t tell by the name, this simply means that ARGB lights carry an additional signal which helps you individually control and address all of the various LED units inside your lighting device. As a result, you can set different colors to any of the LED bulbs in your lighting devices. With this, ARGB lighting not only allows you to create custom designs and color schemes of your own, but they also support much more lighting effects out of the box.
Differences Between ARGB Vs RGB Lighting
While both ARGB and RGB lighting devices are great in their own place, you might be confused about what you should get for your computer. Thankfully, choosing between these two comes down to a few factors that have been mentioned down below. And you can simply go through the following to easily pick the most ideal one for your needs:
1. Primary Usage
If you are wondering about the ideal application and primary usage of ARGB vs RGB lighting, then you will be glad to know that both are used for lighting up computer hardware inside and outside your computer case. These lights can be found inside cooling fans, on the top of your motherboard, behind your monitor, inside your keyboard, around your mouse, on the sides of your GPU, and everywhere else inside and outside your computer.
2. Motherboard Connection
To use any ARGB or RGB lighting device with your computer, you must connect the lighting device to your computer’s motherboard. However, because of the difference in the functionality of these lighting standards, both ARGB and RGB lighting use different motherboard connections and connection headers. To be more exact, RGB lights use a 12-volt 4-pin system for connecting to your motherboard and other lighting devices. On the other hand, ARGB lights use a 5-volt 3-pin system for both the motherboard connection and connections to any other device.
3. Lighting Effects
When you talk about the lighting effects supported by ARGB and RGB lighting modules, you will find that ARGB lights offer much more. As mentioned earlier, RGB lights allow you to set any color. But this is only done in a way that all of the LED lights have the same color at once. Hence, RGB lighting can only have basic lighting effects like static, breathing, color cycle, flashing, or any other effect where there is only a single color present at a given time. On the other hand, when you are talking about ARGB lights, they can have different colors for individual LEDs simultaneously. And this allows for ARGB lights to have much more lighting effects like rainbow, ripple, circular, and many more where multiple colors are present at the same time.
4. Fan Support
If you are considering installing lights inside your computer, consider getting an LED strip or installing LED fans. This is due to the reason that LED fans not only look great but they can even improve the cooling performance of your computer. Fortunately, you can find both ARGB and RGB lighting options while buying LED fans for your computer. When compared with each other, ARGB fans will definitely look better since you have colors cycling through inside and outside the fan frame which definitely looks great.
5. Color Format
Another difference between ARGB vs RGB lighting is the type of signal that they carry. Starting with the simpler RGB lights, they have three pins carrying the signals and one pin carrying power. Talking about the signals, it includes red, green, and blue signals which combine to form colors of all kinds. On the other hand, ARGB lighting modules use integrated circuits which helps them carry the red, green, and blue signals and an addressable signal. And this 4th addressable signal allows you to change colors of individual LEDs inside a given light.
6. Pricing
Since ARGB lights look better and have a more complex design where each LED bulb can be addressed individually, they are definitely the more premium option. Hence, if you are on a budget and you want customisable lighting options on a budget, then going with RGB lighting instead of ARGB lighting can make a lot of sense for you.
Which is Better Between ARGB Vs RGB Lighting?
Whether getting a new computer or upgrading your current one, you want it to look as good as possible. And when talking about customisations, you would need the ideal lighting setup. Even though you can get away with just RGB lighting for the same, going with ARGB lighting setup will definitely offer even better results. This is due to the reason that ARGB lights not only allow you to change the color of the lights, but you can set different colors for different sections. And when combined with the wide range of effects offered by ARGB lighting.
ARGB Vs RGB – FAQs
Ans: Unlike the R, G, and B channels of RGB lighting, the A channel or the addressable channel of ARGB lighting allows the control of different sections of a given light. Since this A channel carries a voltage signal, it can control each individual LED in your lighting products. Hence, ARGB lighting can offer much more colors and lighting effects.
Ans: If you are wondering about the whole point and the key applications behind ARGB lighting, then you should know about its common applications. For the same, you can find ARGB lighting primarily in cooling fans and motherboard lighting. Because of the given shape of these lighting modules, an ARGB lighting setup makes more sense since it will offer more effects
Ans: Compared with each other, ARGB signals only have an additional addressable channel for more information. But other than that, both ARGB and RGB lighting use the same color signals. Hence, you can simply ignore the A signal or the addressable signal of ARGB lighting and use it with other RGB lighting devices and systems.
Ans: In case you want to work with ARGB and RGB color design in a design software for your lighting products, you will come across other color models like CMYK, HSL, HSV, and few others. Thankfully, most design programs will allow you to quickly and easily convert between these color models as needed.
Conclusion
These days, all modern computer hardware comes with customisation options. This will usually include inbuilt lights inside your computer and even in external peripherals. With such lighting, you can make your computer setup look truly one of a kind. Although, not all computer hardware devices have the same kind of lighting. While some may offer RGB lighting, others may come with ARGB lighting. Thus, to help you pick the most suitable one for your needs, we have given a detailed comparison between ARGB vs RGB lighting up above. You can learn pretty much everything there is to know about ARGB vs RGB lighting.
