I've been lied to. For years, I've been told that RGB lighting makes you better at playing video games by the insidious internet, but that claim is apparently unilaterally false. Oh sure, blame me for my naivety, believing in an "obvious meme" that "no one should take seriously" because "there's no way pretty lights would improve your gaming skills in any way." I'm not at fault here, it's Big RGB that's to blame.
Oh well, moving on. I'm still a gamer of average skill, but at least my PC gaming setup in my office is decked out in the most performant, feature-packed, and fantastically lit-up accessories and peripherals I could lay my grubby paws on. My office has never looked better, and RGB lighting aside, I've never enjoyed such quality PC and PC gaming gear. I figured I'd share what I've got lying around here, so you can either try your own luck at elevating your gaming prowess with enough lights to blind the gods... Or do your utmost to avoid the wallet-draining endeavor that is RGB lighting.
All the glorious RGB products (and my reviews)
When I said I let RGB lights take over my office, I meant it. There aren't many products on my desk that don't boast RGB in one form or another at this point, and I've reviewed or written about nearly all of it. Here's the full list if you want to skip straight to "I must RGB everything now," plus some additional honorable mentions for added measure.
- The entire Razer Gamer Room smart home lights suite, which I reviewed
- Buy the Razer Aether Light Strip for $129.99 at Razer (plus there's the Razer Aether Light Strip Extender for $29.99 at Razer)
- Buy the Razer Aether Light Bulb for $49.99 at Razer
- Buy the Razer Aether Lamp Pro for $129.99 at Razer (there's a regular Razer Aether Lamp for $79.99 at Razer if you want to save some money)
- Buy the Razer Aether Monitor Light Bar for $129.99 at Razer
- The Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% Wireless Gaming Keyboard, which I reviewed
- Buy the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% for $299.99 at Best Buy
- You can also buy the non-Pro Razer BlackWidow V4 75% for
$189.99$164.99 at Best Buy, if you don't mind a wire
- The Razer Kraken V4 Pro Wireless Gaming headset, which I reviewed
- Buy the Razer Kraken V4 Pro for $399.99 at Best Buy
- There's also the regular Razer Kraken V4 for $179.99 at Best Buy, if you don't need the haptics or OLED Control Hub
- The Razer Base Station V2 Chroma Headset Stand, which I wrote about
- The Razer Seiren V3 Chroma Microphone, which I reviewed
- The Razer Firefly V2 Pro Hard Mousepad, which I reviewed
- The Razer Basilisk V3 Pro Wireless Gaming Mouse & Mouse Dock Pro, which I... didn't review (but my colleague did)
- Buy the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro for
$159.99$99.99 at Best Buy - There's also the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro 35K for $159.99 at Best Buy, which has improved performance
- Add the Razer Mouse Dock Pro for $69.99 at Razer, if you want wireless charging and 8,000Hz wireless polling rates
- Buy the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro for
- The ASUS ROG Swift OLED (PG32UCDM) Gaming Monitor, which I reviewed
- The Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 8) Gaming Desktop PC, which I reviewed
Yes, I know this list is ridiculous. I do recommend every single one of these products, though, and I still use most every single day. Not mentioned here is the BlueAnt Soundblade Under-Monitor Soundbar and HUANUO Single Monitor Arm Mount on my desk, and that's because they don't have RGB lighting, so who cares?
I will give a special shout-out to the HP OMEN Transcend 32 QD-OLED Gaming Monitor, though. This display is a direct competitor to the ASUS monitor in the list above, and I'm in the middle of testing it — but I'm not ready to write my full review. One thing I can already say about this monitor, though, is that it boasts the brightest, most vibrant rear-facing RGB lighting of any monitor I've tested, which casts a wide swathe of color across the wall behind it. You can get the HP OMEN Transcend 32 for $1,299.99 $999.99 at Best Buy.
This would be more annoying without Razer's ecosystem
If you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, that's a lot of Razer products," then you would be stating the obvious. Obviously. The reason for that is two-fold. On one hand, Razer simply makes some of the best gaming hardware and accessories in the business and is also a household brand, so we review a lot of Razer gear. On the other, Razer has the most cohesive RGB lighting ecosystem on the market with Razer Chroma, and that synergy made this experiment of mind far less of a headache.
Contrary to popular belief, RGB lighting isn't all rainbows, all the time. That's a good way to make your eyes bleed when your entire office is lit up like Christmas all year round. Being able to effortlessly customize the RGB lighting effects or colors of your entire fleet of RGB gear is a massive selling point, and Razer's Synapse software (or standalone Chroma app) makes it incredibly easy. Whether you stick with the basics or mastermind your own unique RGB pattern creations, you can apply your changes to every supported Razer product connected to your PC with one click.
This even applies to the Razer Gamer Room. These are fewer gaming accessories and more smart lights for your home, but still benefit from Chroma. In addition to integration with the most popular smart home ecosystems, the Razer Gamer Room can also shift control of all lights and RGB effects between your phone and the Razer Synapse PC app — and it's all done over your network. That means I can even pull in my smart lights with a single click in Razer Synapse. Razer's far from the only company shoving RGB lighting into everything it makes, but Razer's lighting quality and ecosystem integration are unparalleled.
My Lenovo Legion Tower 7i is a great example. Lenovo has since updated this desktop PC to allow you to customize all of its RGB lights individually (previously you couldn't change the GPU lights), but having to open a separate app and apply your changes to each PC component separately means my desktop PC is usually on the default "rainbow spectrum" setting.
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RGB doesn't equal better skills, but sometimes RGB does equal better products
I'm not ashamed to admit that I have hundreds of hours individually in Counter-Strike, VALORANT, Call of Duty, and Halo, and can't really claim to approach "pro" level in any of them. I'm not prideful and don't particularly mind never being better than "good" as long as I'm still having fun. Flash banging myself with purple lights hasn't led to any meaningful improvement in my skills, but my setup certainly has improved.
My headset provides more precise spatial information; my keyboard and mouse are more responsive and accurate; my monitor is faster and smoother — every individual component of my PC gaming setup is better than it was last year, and it all boasts RGB lighting. Of course, correlation does not equal causation; I'm simply using higher-end gear, especially from a company that has made genuine advancements in its products over the last few years.
It just happens that more premium gaming gear often features RGB lighting. For this reason, there are plenty of no-name companies that shove cheap RGB LEDs into their products to give the appearance of greater quality, and this mentality may have contributed to the rise of the "RGB makes you game better" meme. Better gear can improve your gaming performance, and better gear often includes RGB. Razer is well-known for its high-performance peripherals and accessories, and is also well-known for striving to add RGB to literally everything.
Companies like Corsair, SteelSeries, and HyperX all design excellent accessories to enhance your PC gaming setup, too, and you don't have to go far to find RGB lighting in any of their catalogs. RGB effects have become a mainstay of the video games industry at this point, and whether you love it or hate it you can still buy the best products for you and customize (or disable) that lighting however you want. I, personally, am quite pleased with how my office looks now, even if I still haven't figured out how cable management works.
This editorial does come at a good time. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are here, and with it comes endless sales and discounts on the best tech, accessories, and video games. Windows Central is actively tracking all the best deals, and we even have a live hub for all the current Razer deals you should keep an eye on, if you were looking to add more RGB to your setup.
