Bloatware Benchmark: RGB Software vs. Performance (iCUE, CAM, & More)
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- RGB LED software like Corsair iCUE, MSI Dragon Center, and NZXT CAM, among others, creates a lot of bloat on new gaming PC builds. This benchmark tests the impact.
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We decided to benchmark a full suite of bloatware, like RGB and peripherals software, both individually and altogether. The testing methodology exactly matches our CPU reviews (so check one of those for notes), but switches the GPU to an ASUS Strix 2080 Ti specifically for another RGB LED component, then also uses the 9600K in an MSI ACE Z390 motherboard for the CPU. We chose the 9600K specifically because we knew it'd be a good performer in gaming overall, but that its weaker core/frequency configuration would likely illustrate the software impact more readily.
Software used includes the following:
- MSI Dragon Center (Motherboard)
- NZXT CAM (X42 cooler, HUE 2)
- Corsair iCUE (PSU, 680X LL RGB fans)
- Gigabyte RGB Fusion (RAM / GSkill)
- TT RGB (Riing fans)
- CM MasterPlus (KB)
- Logitech G Hub (Headset)
- EVGA Unleash (Torq mouse)
- ASUS Aura Sync (GPU)
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Editorial, Testing: Steve Burke
Testing, Research: Jake Henderson
Video: Josh Svoboda, Andrew Coleman
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Related to this is our NZXT CAM test for ANR: ruclips.net/video/BHC8_sMgH5Q/видео.html
You should also definitely watch our AMD TDP deep-dive explanation: ruclips.net/video/tL1F-qliSUk/видео.html
Confirming for TDP long play goodness. Worth the bump.
@@agenericaccount3935 Thank you, Johnny! Glad you liked it.
What no polychrome? 😂. This is why they don't have a standard for RGB software yet, "buy all of our stuff or suffer the consequences". 🤷♂️
@@GamersNexus Was a good indepth piece. I know such content can be a pain in the ass to produce, but it is appreciated. The best disinfectant for marketing wank is sunlight.
I'm using a 8350 with R9 280 running iCUE and RAZER software for daily driver...my desktop lags sometimes, lmao. I've got a 2700X box but I've got all my crap on my old box and sometimes I feel like smashing the damn thing.
iCUE for STRAFE RGB Cherry MX Red Silent and RAZER software for a Naga.
Would have liked to see Discord and Steam and the other game launchers as well. Maybe a future video?
Which of the Electron implementations is worse. Cause, apart from maybe Steam, most of the game launchers and Discord are just a headless Google Chrome running a web app (Electron).
I can tell from experience, even with 12 cores, discord will sometimes affect performance. I've never noticed steam being an issue, even though it seems like it would cause problems.
@@skyhop Since Discord is Chrome, it will open multiple instances of itself. The more servers you are part of, the more RAM and resources Discord requires.
Maybe razer synapse? Especially since there’s never a clear indication of which one should be implemented, and that the use varies product to product
They should see what it's like with Steam, GoG Galaxy, Origin, uPlay, Battle.net, Bethesda.net, Rockstar Launcher, Xbox (Beta) launcher, EGS and of course everyone's favourite, the Paradox launcher, all open simultaneously.
I like how the companies selling "gamer gear" are the ones responsible for worsening people's gaming experience.
Nice job. 👍
"People's gaming experience" is subjective. Some people choose RGB over FPS. that is a fact.
Gamers are the dumbest consumers, its the reason why gamer headsets are trash and gaming chairs ruin your back.
These all tests are about really uncommon situation, which most gamers won't have. When you load your cpu at max and then add additional software to cpu, for sure, you'll get such results.
In reality, most gamers will be at Gpu limit, not cpu, with cpu load about 80, 50 or 30%. Additional 1-10% won't really matter.
There might be some people playing 2080ti on 1080p on medium settings, 0.1% of all gamers? But I think they are from one of two categories: 1. cyber-athlet, who already knows all these and doesn't add any unnecessary load 2. Someone who should not ignore their prescriptions and take pills daily!!!
PS: I still love such tests, but I think they are far away from practical use. More just for fun.
I've partially changed my mind, after dragon software took 10-20% of my 3700 cpu! And it didn't work properly (can't even control RGB))) and ruined all coolers' settings. I think it's unacceptable for 300$ mainboard..
And for any inexperienced gamer it would ruin fps for sure, and can destroy hardware...
@@VladimirGolev cpu bound scenarios are becoming more and more common. Also, there have been several instances of software like this causing stuttering even in gpu bound scenarios, even if it doesn't affect average frame rate all that much.
G Hub gets a partial pass for doing something actually useful with macros, but I would definitely prefer more firmware based solutions so I can set it and forget it.
Good point!
Yeah but I hate my keyboard RGB stops working as soon as it crashes or returns to default if I don't have it running
Or just use a mobo that takes care of everything in your system bam no issue. My Asus board controls my corsair h115i, fans, memory, and two light strips just fine... Why or who in the right mind would use so many it makes no sence.
I have to wonder if Corsair is STARTING to move in this direction. I purchased the Ironclaw Wireless RGB recently, and it seems to push some settings to it via firmware. My custom DPI settings are retained by the mouse, even if iCue isn't running. The RGB settings, however, are not retained. I normally like to keep iCue running to keep tabs on my Corsair Void Pro Wireless's battery level (these things last FOREVER if you disable RGB! I sometimes get 12-16 hours of battery life in light usage).
I have started migrating my system to a 100% Corsair setup, as I really like iCue and its UI for its ease of use. I have a NZXT Kraken X31 AIO, and I plan on replacing it with a Corsair model eventually. If I ever get RGB fans, they too will also be Corsair. Combine that with my Corsair keyboard, and I'll nearly be funny Corsair afterward.
The G Hub software does suck though, when open it actually noticeably degrades performance.
This is still so relevant, none of these companies are working on slimming down their software... i'm moving to hardware RGB control and ditching all the software possible.
Excellent job Steve! I have experience with ASUS Aura Sync, and that program used like 4-5% CPU time in the background...! I just uninstalled it after I found that out. It impacted my gaming performance with a 9900K/2080Ti combo in Battlefield 5.
Would you be willing to take a look at the performance difference between Fullscreen/Windowed/Borderless?
I really like these types of videos for their look on practical usage for things that everyone probably already has (albeit probably with less bloatware than what's seen here).
These are only a problem if you don't manage background processes. In that situation I am sure many other apps are draining significant system resources from CPU, RAM, to network. For me, I set the lights and close the RGB app down with no negative impact on the system. When it is time to sell RGB can make a big difference in price.
this video could really use a refresh
Another good relevant ad.
This is why you choose Ryzen, you don't understand how nice it is to be able to stream to friends on discord, watch youtube videos and use bloatware like this without a care in the world and bo performance impact before you experience it.
Would it be worth trying to offload that work onto a much smaller computer? I've seen a lot of traction for multi-system towers recently... perhaps something like a Pi0 or an Intel Atom system running independently that you could screenshare into for control over the lights. Doesn't have to be at all powerful. The bloatware could peg the processor 100% because that's all it does.
Time to uninstall everything and just use christmas lights.
One of my nephews did that. Even put a surge protector INSIDE THE CASE. We're all just waiting for his PC to burn down my brother's house.
Or get an Arduino and let that drive everything
@@AMalas That doesn't sound like a bad idea! But how do you control fans that have lots of ARGB LEDs in them? There's only so many pins, even on the Mega. If you have 9 ARGB fans and each one has 10 LEDs, you will need 90 pins. And then there's the memory and cooler....
@@ArcanePath360 by ARGB, do you mean addressable RGB? Because if so, all you literally need is just one single pin for a lot of LEDs! (Assuming the products have the daisy chain wire going out)
If you mean analog RGB, then youd need only 3 pins and 3 mosfets but then all the red LEDs have to be on at once, so yeah your point is right here
Give me a specific product and ill tell you how many pins you'd need for multiple
@@AMalas I do mean addressable yes. Now I think of it, they are 4 pin I think. I'm rocking the Corsair LL120 ones. I literally have no clue how the lights are addressable with only 4 wires, seems like magic to me, lol, and I wouldn't have a clue how to Arduino them up. There are very cheap options out there on ebay for it to be even worth it IMO, just a fun project to try.
Gigabytes fusion 2.0 provides the best performance because it almost never works.
Amen
Agree i have gigarbage board, need to replace soon
Bout right for all of their software. I had an Aorus laptop and that software didn't even boot up after the first 5 boot ups.
Which doesn't suprise me why the lip warped and broke off
there fan optionn are decent, dragoncenter suck @all
*Trying to* install it nuked my boot drive, so yeah, serious power savungs, too. 🙄 Board was a gift, but I'll be damned sure never to buy a Gigabyte product.
I can’t even imagine how long this video took to record
Luke hahahah i get it
@@screenpatch4146 maybe a day or two. They probably have images and multiple drives setup up for this if they're smart.
"Turned it all to red, didn't make it faster, turned it to blue, didn't make it cooler"
finally someone asking the real questions.
Red is cooler than blue.
Did turning it all to green make the guy behind Steve honk at him to go?
@@jackielinde7568 green lowers the TDP
They tried turning it to purple and the machine turned invisible.
I turned it all to yellow, didn’t overclock my pc
Goes from causing a paradigm shift for TDP... to videos on Frankenboard and bloatware benchmarking. Killin' it, GN
Wouldn't mind both if they're delivered at GN quality
@@decimusanothos5178 They already did both. One of them literally is this one
Its been almost a year since this was uploaded, id love to see if any got better (or worse). also a lot of people suggested testing things like discord and steam. Razer synapse could be one to add as well.
Not sure synapse would have as much impact as Cortex.
@@joshua41175 razer synapse fucking sucks. It's the sole reason I don't use razer products anymore. Their drivers are terrible.
Just installed iCUE for the first time today. I thought if I just configure everything and then close it, all would be fine. Well, turns out at least everything worked without it running in the background (or so I thought), but then I looked at the task manager and saw 4 (!!!) Corsair tasks running which had names that had nothing to do with my hardware (something with "gaming headset" for example - I dont even have a Corsair gaming headset!), which used a combined 5% CPU on and off (on a 12-thread CPU).
I let out a huge guffaw, uninstalled that crap and will never buy a Corsair product ever again that requires iCUE to run.
Unbelievable. Anyone who produces crap like that deserves the long term damage it creates, because people will only look at it again in maybe years, in hope they have improved. But as this video and my case prove, they have not improved at all in almost 2 years. It actually got worse!
@@LordMoebius Gotta say, their software has gotten way more stable and uses maybe 0,1% CPU in my system, it´s totally ok and still better than iCue or the logitech software. Few years ago it used to crash and not load profiles in the right way but in the last time its been rocksolid, at least for me
@@froznfire9531 when i originally used it about 3 years ago it kept crashing and disconnecting my mouse when i used it wirelessly. It got so bad that i just never used my mouse wirelessly even tho i paid like $100 extra for the wireless version. No matter what I did it sucked. And their background processes were a huge drain on resources. I dont care about heat maps.
The software you came here looking for is called OpenRGB. It's open source. You set the RGB settings and close it. No goddamn background service crap.
"You probably haven't seen a system tray this cluttered"
*capture cropped to exclude system tray*
Hah, have you seen MY system tray?
Gore is not allowed on RUclips
And I’m pretty sure my work computer has a more cluttered system tray, still
W10 hides most of it in the little up arrow anyway.
@@samfedorka5629
Vista/7 does too.
I and I think a lot of people would love to see an updated version of this including Asus Armory Crate, as it has many background processes that get installed with the app itself.
MSI laptop? Not sure if "recently" even needs to be added there
That's... that's true. "Ever" would have been more appropriate. Good point.
First thing I did when I got my last MSI laptop was to reformat the Windows partition and install it again from scratch.
Their prestige lineup is pretty clean actually. I don't know why they have to stuff useless stuff to the gaming one.
James Amril-Kesh So close. So close. But then you reinstalled Windows instead of a Unix-like. Could’ve had FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GhostBSD, DragonflyBSD, any Linux distro; whatever.
I ordered a GT70 OND back in 2012. I was actually really excited to get it. I7 4c something or other, 16gb ram, raid ssd, gtx 680, bluray burner etc. It was my first high end gaming machine.
That dream became a nightmare when I started it up the first time. Windows 7 boot screen quickly became an MSI dragon background that to my dismay was then a flood of msi themed bloatware windows.
I have yet to buy anything from MSI since. This is coming from an Alienware Area 51M owner.
"Sir, our software install counts are dropping fast! What happened!?"
"...Gamers Nexus."
Steve if you ever watch the debug mode of the iCue software you can see the computer is directing all the LEDs! The data over the bus is insane. For some reason Corsair couldnt spend the money on a $160 keyboard to install something like a $5 arduino +mux chip in the keyboard to handle the custom animation.
It's rediculous how inefficient it is.
Very interesting! Thanks for the info, and good point.
What bugs me about icue... besides it sucking... is the usb module's required for the fans and light strips not taking the majority of the load. I mean really, why even have those if they could just be daisy chained off the mb? The mess of wires it creates in a case alone is enough for me to never purchase their hardware again...I mean besides icue crashing...
I was expecting such a dumb electronic design. I guess the software itself is poorly designed too because we're talking about entire percents of an i5 horsepower, that's not a RaspberryPi.
That's kind of absurd. Their stuff is some of the most expensive too.
Pointed this out to them already on the forum and the fact that setting the sensor logging to 9999 seconds reduces 'idle' load to near nothing. But what do I know? I know that companies like this and Samsung are utter crap at coding and debugging the basics. The sheeple need to pressure them into open sourcing the code so people who give a damn can fix their blatent mistakes.
They didnt even have TLS on the forum till I messaged them and created a user called jesusnotls or similar
"Turned them all to red, but it didn't make it faster." I refuse to believe this propaganda :-P
16:58 "bloatware impact on boot time will likely be noticed at each boot" - GN 2019
Also water is wet...
Imagine how it would impact a 'spinning disc' H/D boot time 😱😱😱😱😱
30sec boot on a clean install? Must of been using a Kingston ssd. I can boot in about 15sec with iCue, ledkeeper, discord, and a few more on startup with a 970 evo nvme. Even my benchmark os on a 860 pro 2.5 ssd with just hwinfo and nvidia on boot is faster then there clean boot.
Boot time is also platform and motherboard dependent. For example X570 has 15 seconds of fixed time before it even gets to the POST screen.
@@sogwatchman *pushes anime glasses in* water isn't wet since it is a liquid itself, everything it touches becomes wet though
iCue is a huge performance hog on my system. I can't remember exactly when it started, maybe around a few months ago, but I suddenly started getting very annoying stuttering in all my games and even in the windows desktop. The only fix I found for this was to just disable iCue startup. There is a service running in the background doing its thing like controlling the RGB and fan speeds etc. But it has no effect on performance at all. Only when the application of iCue is started will it cause this issue. I even did 3dmark benchmarks on my system with all the stuttering and compared it to benchmarks from before the stuttering. My CPU score dropped with like a quarter of its normal score because of the stuttering.
@Super Jeff That is disappointing. Ever since I posted my comment I have kept my iCue application disabled and only the service running. I only open the iCue application to update it and then I immediately close it.
It really sucks to have to do something like that just for supporting the company that created it.
Well, rejoice, one year later at least half of the 4 services it installed on my machine caused 5% CPU usage.
icue also crashed a lot for me. IDK why this software to control the RGB is so buggy? MSI and ASUS's RGB software wasn't any better.
Do i have to completely uninstall it? Or disable works?
@@alaminmdtanvir3361 No. you do not have to uninstall it. Just remove it from start up, then restart your computer. iCue will no longer start up with Windows but everything will still be working fine and the stuttering will stop.
should have used the Walmart overpriced PC.
price was not a real issue.
the prize is price
@@nimrodquimbus912 you get extra glue
You restored my faith in humanity.
@Critical Tech well then, don't blame me when your faith gets crushed.
"gaming companies hate him, find out why in this short video"
Now that's how you do content
As someone who has every Corsair perpherals/ RGB, I feel cheated.
Atleast ur with 1 brand, icue is still p dope with how it has so much functionality baked in
@@buckbuckleyson2259 And all I need from it is setting DPI, setting the custom buttons and disabling RGB.
@@Krigalishnikov "disabling RGB" you monster XD
It's MUCH better than having to download a million software since iCUE gives you everything (ram, AIO, fans, rgb, keyboard, mouse) where if you went to others you'd have to atleast down 2 softwares. I'm planning to do a build with iCUE in mind so that I don't have to download any motherboard RGB software.
ICUE at least keeps the addons specific to your devices. MSI makes you download all of their garbage just to make lights change colors...
Lol that MSI callout was beautiful :D
RIP my old 4690k while running LGS, iCue, and MSI Dragon Center.
I absolutely hate Logitech's "Logi" whatever software. I spent hours making my own effect (Mad Effect related, btw). The export/import feature from LGS should be on all RGB software.
Now, with my new system, LGS (kbd, mouse), MSI Dragon (because Music Light isn't available as a standalone for the MSI 2080 Super), Corsair iCue (mm, Dom Plat RAM), Asus software (mobo), NZXT (case, CPU)..
This proprietary addressable software is ridiculous. Open source this crap for a synchronous RGB experience.
I just made an all corsair build
I am traumatized by a logitech bloatware experience that I had years ago and will never allow a product from Logitech near my PC. This stuff matters to daily PC users more than manufacturers want to believe.
1:52 damn it, that upside down NZXT liquid cooler is really bothering me
looks like it would interfere with ram
a small price to pay for salvation
@@Flurry17 i use the same ram and cooler and they dont interfere, just touch.
Well stand on your head .
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Looks the right way up in Australia?
I have mine upside down too because NZXT are pieces of shit and wouldn't allow me to turn the plate
I’m convinced iCUE is a mining platform. I have corsair RAM in my pc and need the software open for the lighting control. The software has a process called LLA service that constantly uses your internet bandwidth for god knows what reason.
Do you always need to have it open in the background to have rgb on
Lord AT It did when I posted this. They’ve since fixed it, at least for the ram I have. Don’t need it on all the time to control the lighting anymore.
@@BackwardsCombatable thanks currently debating whether to get Corsair h115i AIO and fan or not I heard good and bad abt icue I heard it got way better tho
this is why i likes Logitech's hardware, especially the gaming hardware. you install G hub or the older Gaming software, set the settings you want and push the settings to the devices onboard memory, and nuke the software. i won't buy hardware that doesn't have built in memory to hold the settings without the software.
and being that my PC is pretty low end (playing games on my HTPC), having unneeded software running in the background sucks what little performance the CPU does have and you can really tell it if you forget to kill a program that runs in the background.
It depends on what you want. You can't have individual game profiles using the on-board memory, you still need the software to run for the "Automatic Game Detection" mode.
@@PrototypeOnyx Also custom lighting patterns too don't save to the device's memory.
Just with ArX control/second screen/monitoring was implemented better.
I love the idea of fine tuning settings and monitoring temps from a cheap tablet/phone.
also you lose some macro features with onboard mode.
@@PrototypeOnyx I got a G110, it has 12 programmable keys and 3 profiles, all on board. So no need for automatic game detect when you can just do it with a button on the keyboard.
Please make an updated version
I wish you would have tested Razer Synapse as well but iCUE definitely helped me.
yep
Yep here too!
Should add corsair link as well.
Forgot to add msi afterburner and aida 64
Second the razer software.
@@abdulhkeem.alhadhrami We didn't "forget," we just didn't add them. It wasn't in the scope of the project. Also, AIDA isn't bloatware. It's monitoring and logging software.
You guys should really review Open RGB; a free software that aims to standardise lighting in systems having components and peripherals from different manufacturers. its still under development but pretty helpful and lightweight
I have mine setup so it changes my ram and cpu cooler lights when I start the computer, then it closes itself so it's not actually running anymore.
@@MultiNastyNate how?
@Joe Beef Hash what do you prefer: bad fps or data collecting?
Has any progress been made on reverse engineering the control schemes for these products? I'd like to see a FOSS implementation of a unified control software for multiple vendors, someday.
found this just yesterday gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB
@@musicismypseudonym Thank you! I hope this ends up being a killer solution!
@@musicismypseudonym doesnt support shittybyte tho
Why was the NXZT logo upside down? Was it just to infuriate the detail obsessive among us? Thanks for the deep dive, though. The RGB decentralization is awful for UI/UX.
@@YT_handles_r_stupid always online bullshit
Just wondering, could you set everything like lighting and headset eq, etc., then just exit icue? (Oh and I use a H110i Pro, so would exiting icue change my fan and pump profiles (and lighting), or would it stay as is when I exit?) Wondering if just exiting the app while gaming would work as well, and if your settings/profiles would stay the way it is after exiting and then the effect would go away. I also have an EVGA card, so I use Precision X1 (I also have a Aorus Master, but I always exit RGB fusion, and the profile stays set after exiting. Checking in task manager, there are no background tasks associated with RGB Fusion after exiting so I'm assuming that one is fine to just set and exit and you're good), which recently has an issue with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Checking on the forums for the game, others are having the same issue, even with Afterburner, etc. With Precision running w/ the game, there are some stuttering issues. Exit Precision and run the game, no stutter issues (and this is w/ G-Sync monitor on a 2080). So I just set the profile I want in Precision for my fans and LED, then exit, then play the game. It runs butter smooth like that. Probably the game's fault, it is still quite buggy, but for anyone experiencing issues, try exiting your GPU program and then play, it worked for me and a bunch of others. I just don't know if the fan profiles and overclock and all that stick after exiting, I never really checked :P Sorry, went off on a tangent, so I guess my question to GN is, would setting iCue profiles, then exiting, affect FPS less? And would the profiles you set (lights, headset eq, fans/pump, etc.) stick after exiting the program? I'm simple, I set everything to one color (I hate Rainbow Puke), but I don't know how I'd do that without iCue. Just wondering if exiting would kind of be a workaround, affect FPS less while still letting the set profiles stick, even if the program is no longer running.
interesting
Yes. You can set and then leave or exit Icue. Makes a huge differnce. Correct. On;ly problem is, it only words for ram in my case. I use icue to set my ram and exit. and I set aura to set my 2 rgb light bard that are hooked into the mobo rgb headers and exit that program. Problem solved. Performance regained.
This is insane. I was litterally looking at all my RGB bloatware and thinking, my god that's alot of shitty software just to run lights. Steve you read my mind once again. Thank god for you and your team! ✌️🇨🇦
System 76 is working on a open source RGB hardware controller with software to go with it.
I run on Linux and it has been amazing... but I was missing RGB support until I got my hands on this kit.
You can download the PCB files and build it yourself or buy the full thing.
That's pretty awesome I got to check that out
@@19971997gt also visit beta.LBRY
@@19971997gt found it and all the files to build it. its called thelio IO github.com/system76/thelio-io it incluseds the DXF files to have the PCB printed, or if you cant print it at home there are PCB prototyping companies that charge like 5 USD for a small PCIe board this size.
This is Why I love getting hardware that remembers a setting even if you uninstall the software needed to change it, sometimes you get a diamond in the rough and the Glorious gaming keyboard I bought has built in software to change the lighting any way I want. I hope companies can reduce the performance hit of their software if possible.
Didn't check this when buying my corsair keyboard, ended up getting one that needs the software running 24/7, which really sucks
I have seen this really bizarre keyboard which keeps its colour settings on its own chipset, but somehow it lacks the < | > key. As in there is no key for these symbols to press.
Aquasuite?
@@katier9725 my old blackwidow do that
@@Neiva71 I juat avoid razer because it (and many other brands) are just overpriced hunks of plastic with terrible keycap and switch quality. Software is the cherry on the disaster cake.
Blasphemy, everyone knows RGB makes my computer faster!
Would love a hint about where to find a tutorial on building a super slim windows install for low resource overhead. Against all bloatware enemies, foreign and domestic.
Google debloat windows 10, some good repos on GitHub for doing such things
@@tarfeef_4268 10-4 😋
It's easy, install Windows 10 ltsc and enjoy glorious power user windows that will pretty much only do what you tell it and only install updates when you make it do so
@Omega He said Windows install. Linux still isn't that glorious when it comes to gaming.
Windows 10 LTSC.
Nothing else is comparable, can't really even make it any smaller
Impressive results, totally not something I expected to see. ...Feels like 2001 all over again, running Windows XP and disabling everything in the Task Manager.
Ooooh that takes me back lol
"Turn them to red didn't make it faster" and "turning it to blue didn't make it any colder"
Consumer research there people
Update: August 2020 iCue still sucks and it seems to always use 1.0% CPU all the time now
That line made the video worth watching by itself.
rgb fusion, this thing sometimes causes bsods
It's improved.... slightly. My chance of BSOD when opening the software went down from 80% to 70% with the latest software
iCUE definitely does need some big improvements!
got a new i9 9900k - and my first cpu core was on 80% while idleing for no reason.. games lagged, etc. until i realised, that my iCUE was causing the cpu load. So if any of you got problems, turn off that shit.
Had issues with a recent iCUE version too, then I went back to an earlier version until a fix was out, and the problem was solved. Current iCUE version seems to run great
@@Galistia my biggest problem is the intergration with RGB fusion software that will change my damn ram orange all the time lol
@@zabuza_zen7217 worse one I’ve seen is g-skills driver. Doesn’t work on different motherboard manufacturers and when it does work it uses 5% of the ram. Even iCue works better.
ICUE 4 is pretty neat
"The goal of this content was..." to get views from RGB haters and lovers alike. Here, corrected it for you ;)
Obviously, which is ironic considering damn near every one of them is running it. I'll bet you money Steve uses it on his own PC, somewhere, whether it be fans or AIO, or whatever.
Damn Steve, I LOOOOVE Linode. What if we bloat their servers?
RGB control in the cloud? I think you're on to a winner. Think of the subscription fees!
Sadly I have to keep iCUE running else my mouse has awfully slow control (and the weirdest colours). I will probably go back to cheap single colour mice/keyboard, because I just DO NOT want extra shit running. Kinda curious if ELGATO STREAMDECK, has any affect.
Maybe corsair could take all that profit from their PREMIUM-ly priced and well selling hardware and hire some software engineers who know how to engineer software. Or make it open source. Or jsut stay lazy on their fat lazy rich asses.
Tech Jesus has spoken... Thou shall not Bloatware Your PC!
I'm sticking to rainbow unicorn vomit. Screw bloatware.
ASUS now uses Armoury Crate, which includes Aura Sync, and supposedly, it's even worse when it comes to performance impact. Worse, according to reports, uninstalling doesn't restore performance entirely. It would be nice to see an updated version this from the perspective of motherboard RGB software.
I uninstalled iCUE and run RGB from an Arduino using the FastLED library. 1000x better than iCUE's lighting presets and takes no performance from the PC since the Arduino does it all, plus I can push the refresh rate on the LEDs above 200hz without issues. The Arduino is great for this task.
I'd love to know more about how you did this. Any pointers beyond the library? Is your code available?
@@edolnx it's easy enough just using the FastLED examples. The Corsair fans can be treated as a ws2812b addressable RGB strip if connected to the corsair RGB hub(the one with 6 ports) so there isn't really anything special that needs to be done. Just figure out the pinout on the hub and connect it to the Arduino. Make sure the data pin and 'number of LEDs' parameters are set correctly in the program.
For someone who has played with Arduino and addressable RGB strips this probably makes sense. If not then there are many examples to learn from online. When you have that working the possibilities are endless pretty much.
@@NickyNiclas sweeT!
Can you recommend a tutorial or where to start in general for someone new to arduino? I'm using Jacknet to control the various components but it still runs through the pc, albeit with much less resource use than all the software it replaces, but I'd still like to try what you're describing!
RGB fusion is the ultimate torture one can put themselves thru after building the pc
It's nice how you can use most GPU OC software on other brands, I've used MSI's afterburner for every GPU I have had, and I have yet to have an MSI GPU. It would be nice if we could have some form of cross-compatibility for lighting software.
"unexpected but not unwelcome"
thanks for the great content.
With Corsair their RGB-Hub that came with a fan set, was incompatible with their own LED-stripes!
Spank you very much!
What about Razer's software? Does that affect any meaningful performance?
Yes
Finally some real world benchmark, this is what Intel wanted
Lmao
Can this topic be revisited? The asus variant hasn't improved at all and if anything has only gotten worse.
What about having the items installed but not set to run at start up and having them all turned off after using them for their respective needs?
I don't even let discord run at start up.
Also wondering this
that is not an option
@@NarciisJr can be, depends on the software. Icue you’re correct has gone the way of stopping this. They do it the worse too with a bait and switch. A Corsair keyboard will work the instant
You plug it in, lights and all. But once you update the firmware on the keyboard, which is required to make any changes at all, they update it to force the lights off when icue is closed.
Also though, this is a recent chance less than a year old from Corsair. And my comment is over a year old that you decided to respond to. Thanks for the memories!
@@tsfitz443 My K70 has onboard memory. I can plug mine into usb power plug and i have 3 saved RGB profiles. I can take my keyboard to my friends house and have my Settings as soon as it powers on. :)
Right now, i'm just using Armory crate + SignalRGB 😅😅😅
Armory crate is disgusting bloatware. Injects itself all through your PC. Try and stick just to Signal
I have been waiting for this exact benchmark video from any source for a LONG time. Thank you Steve!
"Turning all RGB to red didn't make it faster"
Me a fellow Ork: *Konsern* 'old on now
Well Damn. I have aura sync and saw it on the thumbnail but didnt find out the damage.
iCUE is the worst of all. And I mean THE worst.
Maybe you couldn't notice while testing on benches but it is. Since I've installed it (for my keyboard customization) I experienced many crashes.
Sometimes when it goes into sleeping mode, it shuts down and won't boot, sometimes when turning it on I had black screen and fans turning fast/slow/fast and boot fails, sometimes I had crash and blue screen error (memory) and sometimes when I checked my RAM clockspeed it was runing at 1866 MHz (instead of 3200MHz !)
All due to that one bloatware.
At first I checked my RAM tuning after blue screen and RAM runing at low speed (it should run at least at 2133 MHz out of the box)
But it wasn't better.
I noticed something was really wrong, when I launched Taiphoon Burner and it told me that iCUE is runing and the reading of the RAM is not correctly possible. (WTF?!)
I uninstalled it.
Nobody needs such crap on his computer
It had even downgraded my motherboard's BIOS version (HOW ??!)
It was flashed to F2 version and now it's F1 version, like when I bought it.
Oh and did I mention that the software itself did never work properly?
I had to plug out and in the keyboard every single time after a wake up / start of the PC and had to launch the software and select the customization profile I wanted to apply.
is it fair to assume this is also the case with having several game launchers like steam, gog, uplay, origin, epic, etc?
perhaps other programs like discord, MSI afterburner, playing audio in the background?
Discord, being a pretty thicc electron app (Chrome wrapping) could have a pretty decent impact.
I fucking hate RGB because of this bullshit software. On TridentZ RGB RAM, the ONLY way you can disable the RGB is by installing G.skill's RGB software, which uses 7% cpu at idle on a 1900x. It's fucking ridiculous.
I wonder if setting up iCue settings and then leaving the software OFF during use will behave like a post-uninstall in performance or the same as just having it on. iCue can set hardware settings that are used when the software is turned off.
I am wondering the same
@Tab You might have a hardware lighting button in iCue that you can set for your keyboards RGB aswell. I could for my K70. Same with led strips.
@Tab I dont have my K70 anymore but it was in the same spot for everything.
If you open iCue, go to where you change the RGB settings (per item), you have your created effects on the left and a bit further down is "lightings library" and below that there should be "hardware lighting". Click that and you should be able to set a single color that it runs when the software is off.
I can vow Gigabyte software sucks...rgbfusion straight just not works now without any reason
I wanna see an improvement in the memory of RGB settings, I find it really interesting my Stock AMD Cooler boots up with its RGB settings i set before windows even starts, but my ASUS Board, Ram and Fans dont start their RGB til windows has at least started. and my GPU is Gigabyte and similar to my Cooler is set and forget i even uninstalled the software and it stays what i set it to.
@Salaminized exactly my point, why only "some" If Cooler Masters program for AMD Coolers can do it, why cant ASUS, who literally make the board and the software? Why cant Fan kits that usually make you buy some kind of wire node have the same thing? Cutting corners to save pennies.
@@River_Miles its another LGBT money making conspiracy.
yea aura sucks for my asus... if its set to a animation rbg show it eats like 10% cpu load. and sometimes the load is higher
@@ZodaSoda the corsair nodes that control the fans, strips, etc can set to set and forget once you set it up right in hardware lighting. Then just set icue to not start on boot. Having fans store there led colors by them self would require each fan to have its own memory on it. If done this way the price of fans would be even more expensive then what they are now. It also depends on the type of leds used. There is a difference between 12v rgb & 5v argb and how they work.
@@ZodaSoda uhhh.... auto correct much?
After watching this video I would really like a guide to the most clean Windows 10 install for games only and/or best performance. I evade most bloatware as I can but you have the means to show what can be the best for game or other performance types of PC.
interesting
To be fair, windows itself is bloatware...
only reason I kept using Corsair
1 - they started having different pump rather than Asetek!
2 - they do write their own utility software for their Cooler products,,,only a few manufacturer do it and have it ...NZXT, Corsair , Lian Li AIO cooler...? whose else cooler has software management control...very few!!
I wish you guys would do this again.
That fucking icue bullshit has caused me so much trouble and countless hours trying to find my frametime spikes issue. Uninstalled and BOOM. 8.3ms all the time. DO NOT INSTALL ICUE
16:08 "Dragon Center, just like it offers its users... appears to do almost nothing." Brutal, Steve... brutal.
not wrong though .
WTF is all of this doing in the background? Seems like it should just set the profile on boot and go to sleep.
I'd also love to see some software like afterburner and precision x, especially custom fan curves, as well as various monitoring software examined if you do a revisit!
Edit: oo, what about Antivirus?
laughing in OpenRGB ^^
Disappointed to see how iCUE performs as that is the main software I use and sadly I'm kinda locked into it now with corsair ram and corsair AIO.
I wonder why "Post-Uninstall" seems to perform a little better than "Clean Install"
he said they removed some windows stuff
If we can have standards for RAM, PCIe slots, SATA, mobo power, fans, etc., then why can't the industry develop an RGB control standard? There must be a reason why it doesn't want a single RGB control standard.
My take away from this video is, no RGB gets you the best performance.
Or use RGB, and stick to the default unicorn vomit.
Please do Asus Armoury Crate it takes on high around 20% of my CPU usage and on low it takes 7% to 10% and I am using an i5 9600k. Many users have posted threads about this problem but nobody gave it the attention it deserves.
Oh for the good old days of "dumb" LED and cold cathode lighting that didn't need software to fill a PC with pretty colors.
damn it corsair.. i really wish i could just have a fast pc and still be able to use my programmable g-keys with a keyboard..
even though the keyboard has an onboard macro recording, it doesnt even fucking work and all i'm told by the support is to just download iCUE and move shit from there
my fucking problem is that i cant even have iCUE's task ended, it freezes my keyboard if i close iCUE so i always have to keep that shit running ffs
I would be interested to see how impact is when you have CPUs with more cores and/or threads. I would like to see this compared to a 3600 to see if there is a significant improvement if any with having the extra threads with the same core count.
Hold on, do you need the RGB software to be running all the time? Can't you just set the colors/config you like and close it, never opening it again until you want to change something? (and disable launch on start-up)
I’d be curious to see a benchmark with 6 vs 8 core CPU performance with RGB software/background processes. Would the 8 core have any difference in performance?
I have aquacomputer aquasuite on my pc and that stupid piece of shit regularly fucks up in the background and spikes to 30-40% cpu utilisation. Rip in game framerate.
iCue has an option that allows you to set a rgb profile that runs after you close the background application. I would have liked to have seen this benchmarked as well, to see if it mitigated or even restored performance, outright. Bit of an oversight, if you ask me.
I like hardware which have on device memory. Once I set the configuration I either disable at startup or uninstall. I disable hardware acceleration in discord, chrome and other applications
The reason RGB sucks donkey balls...other than making your PC look like a 70's disco.
stuff like this should be benchmarked using realistic specs (at most GTX 2060 and 8-16gb of dram)
This test is very inconclusive. It matters a lot how many items you have connected to particular piece of software and what lighting effects you run. You can have 5% CPU usage with rainbow effects and it will drop to 0% when set to static. There are too many variables to draw any kind of reliable data for these programs.
Yeah i use icue for my mouse only and its below 1% cpu usage, got some breathing on it between 2 blue's and it tops at 75mb ram, when i fully open up the program (so i can adjust all mouse settings) it shoots up to 300-400mb ram and 5% cpu usage. I feel like they had them fully open in the background and not minimised because i never get close to the performance losses they had here.
And i have an i7-2600k (no oc atm) so i suspect my performance losses should be worse.
@Wazze Mazze agreed.,, a test by someone who doesnt use this stuff,, has a known bias against this stuff,, an RGB hating Video by an RGB hater lol..... makes sense...
Would like to see Armoury crate on this review. another auful RGB bloatware. I unisntalled it even when I have many asus Hardware.
Cant wait for brand defenders to throw out their arguments.
But RGB pretty!
I get going down to the shops and buying a corsair keyboard, razer mouse and Coolermaster RGB fan kit because you don't want to wait however long for shipping..But economically, functionally; There is zero reason to not just buy chinese brands for this stuff. $25-60 Chinese mice, mech keyboards and rgb stuff is generally as good if not better [down to better switches than tired old geniune cherry mx], isnt as reliant on always on bloatware, and cost half or less of Razer/Corsair., Headphones is the one thing, and even then audiophiles laugh.
@@anasevi9456 There's a special place in hell for people with 'gaming' headsets.