Your RGB reminiscence would possibly look vibrant and eye catching by way of your case window, however there’s an opportunity these dazzling lights might injury your graphics card backplate, in keeping with a number of experiences from PC avid gamers on Reddit. Two current posts present MSI Gaming X Trio graphics playing cards, primarily based on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, the place the black backplate has been turned brown within the precise location the place the sunshine from the system RAM shines on the cardboard.
Metallic backplates are discovered on many of the finest graphics playing cards nowadays, serving to to shift warmth away from any reminiscence mounted on the again of the PCB. A lot of these backplates, akin to these within the MSI playing cards pictured, even have a black paint end, and it seems as if the colour on this end might be bleached by sure RGB lighting.
You may see clearly within the photographs beneath that the areas the place the backplate has been bleached immediately correspond with the dimensions and form of the ends of 4 reminiscence modules. It’s not clear how this burn-in impact was created, and whether or not it’s down to easily warmth or a particular wavelength of sunshine, however it’s attainable for RGB LEDs to emit some mild within the UV band after they’re set to vibrant blue settings. We’ve reached out to MSI for remark to seek out out what might be taking place right here.
Each the latest posts reporting the injury come from customers of MSI Gaming Trio GeForce RTX 3080 playing cards, though different customers have chimed in with photographs of Asus and Zotac playing cards that function an analogous bleaching impact on their backplates, the place the black has been turned brown, so it’s not an issue confronted by MSI alone.
One of many MSI customers additionally included a second picture of their system, which now accommodates a Gigabyte graphics card, to point out the reminiscence sample on the backplate. The reminiscence used on this specific system is G.Talent TridentZ RGB, however different Reddit customers have commented to say they’ve the identical reminiscence and have skilled no backplate bleaching issues.
MSI additionally claimed that these playing cards had “graphene” backplates, however a teardown of the cardboard confirmed that they had been more likely to be made out of a combination of plastic and graphite, with a coating of acrylic paint. Both approach, it seems as if this acrylic paint is especially conscious of among the mild from RGB reminiscence modules.
Fortunately, this bleaching impact is beauty, and received’t affect the thermal efficiency of your graphics card, although it would make it tougher to promote if you wish to improve sooner or later. Should you do wish to construct a gaming PC with a lot of lights, ensure you additionally learn our information on set up RGB lighting, the place we present you which of them lights to purchase and the place to place them.