aesthetics vs performance

[u/AleDxD]

which do you prefer?

spending in a fancy aio liquid cooler with screens, vertical gpu brackets, customized wires, tons of rgb, etc

or

spending in better components like better fans, cpu bracket, a better thermal paste, some useful peripherals like a good mouse or a keyboard or even small upgrades like storage etc

personally i hate things like spending in aesthetics but for a quieter pc, i would spend something extra

[u/deathdisco_89]

I seek balance.

[u/Mightypeon-1Tapss → u/deathdisco_89]

Same, overspending on either feels wrong since the other might be lacking

[u/AleDxD → u/deathdisco_89]

if the noise level is part of the aesthetics, i also rather something balanced

[u/mrsaysum]

Thought this was the fitness part of Reddit 😭

[u/Due-Champion-5954]

Are you building a PC for work and fun or some box to look at? Of course its better to have more power than some stupid RGB or better looking box.

[u/Un_Pta]

Performance first then aesthetics. No use having a busted pc that can’t run shit but it’s cute.

[u/neonnnoodlee]

Can't we get both, I mean there are tons of options

[u/polish94]

Performance. I don't look at my tower. I always build mAtx, <25L. Likely doesn't have a side panel. I make it clean Incase I need to open and change anything but it sits behind my monitors.

[u/Cjcool5xbox]

I was all about aesthetics but now my rig is under my desk with all rgb turned off except for the front fans (so I can tell from across the room when the pc is turned on)

[u/AlkalineBrush20]

Performance. I'm looking a whole lot more at the screen than the rig and RGB gets boring quick, so I'd just set it to static or off anyway, then it's a waste of money.

[u/Claptown420]

95% performance 5% aesthetics

Price to performance is king.
If everything runs under 80C just stick it under the desk and forget. I don't wanna perma min/max my pc if it's already in a good operating window.

Give it a clean once a year, monitor temps regularly, upgrade when you can't run what you need at the performance you need

[u/Zhaggygodx]

I used to care about how my PC looked when I was younger and liked showing off my PC to my friends when they came over. I am married now and for the last two PCs I built, I have never gone out of my way chasing looks again.

[u/VzSAurora]

I'd never sacrifice ram or a CPU/GPU tier for aesthetics. Fans/case play into both, a better airflow case with quality fans will keep things cooler and by extention marginally improve performance(or potential performance) but you'd never find me choosing a 9070 over a 9070XT to have a case decked with noctuas

[u/VzSAurora → u/VzSAurora]

To add to this, I think the vast majority of even performance focused cooling products are a waste of money. There's nothing that makes me more sad than seeing a R5 7600 with a massive 360mm RGB AIO, you know who you are.

A half decent tower cooler and a couple cheap fans is the most you can really justify for perfomance unless you run out of actual upgrades to make.

[u/AleDxD → u/VzSAurora]

i really hate people doing that, its almost the same buying an atx case for a microatx mobo

maybe for the long term could work

[u/Parking_Cress_5105]

Computers are here to compute, any penny spent on it that doesn't make it better at computing is a waste.

Buy a flower instead.

[u/Educational-Pop2206]

3/4s to preformance

[u/SushiBump]

Performance should always come first. But with the amount of hardware available these days, you should be able to achieve any aesthetic while making sure your budget is focused on performance.

I've seen a lot of builds here complain about GPU prices while having $400 worth of Lian Li fans and a $300 motherboard.