The PC has always been a tool of expression for PC builders. It's not just made up of parts containing transistors, capacitors, and circuits. It's a canvas that tech enthusiasts use to tell a personal story, and this naturally opens the door for aesthetically-minded parts and technologies. This is why PC mods like CCFL tubes, UV lighting, and EL wires were a thing, and why RGB lighting became such a big hit with PC builders.

With time, however, RGB began taking over every square inch of a PC, even on power supplies to GPU support brackets. And now, LCD screens have started to follow suit. What began as a novelty a few years ago is now in full-blown mainstream territory. Manufacturers are adding LCDs to anything they can think of. If this trend doesn't fade away soon, we're in for something much worse than RGB puke.

As if the RGB movement wasn't enough

RGB lighting had already gone crazy

I'll be honest: RGB components look great, but only when used in moderation. If you use RGB lighting as an esthetic tool to sync all your components into a uniform theme, then it can truly elevate the looks of your build. What many PC builders do, however, is turn everything up to 11 and flood their builds with random rainbow effects that have no connection between them.

Just because you have unlimited lights inside your case doesn't mean it'll look good. Besides, manufacturers started adding RGB lighting to basically everything associated with a PC — power supplies, M.2 heatsinks, GPU support brackets, and even outside the PC in the form of RGB deskmats and monitors. When you add RGB lighting to components that never needed it, it breaks all the rules of visual harmony. And what you get can then only be termed "RGB puke."

LCDs on PC parts are getting out of hand

What's next?

When the PC hardware industry had had its fill of RGB lighting, it turned its attention to LCDs. It started humbly: a single display on your case or attached somewhere inside the case. What followed, however, was a deluge of components with LCDs because manufacturers realized they could charge hundreds more by adding a customizable screen to basically anything.

Cases, CPU coolers, case fans, graphics cards, motherboards — everything received an LCD "upgrade." And even that was fine. When you only use, say, a CPU cooler with an LCD or a few fans with screens in the center, your PC doesn't scream for attention. On the other hand, if you're hell-bent on getting your hands on multiple LCD-laden components, you're essentially turning your PC into Times Square.

Let's stop it before it's too late

PC building should remain sacred

Companies aren't stopping here; we're now getting screens on the sides of case fans and memory sticks. At Computex 2025, we even got cases with 12-inch LCDs and CPU coolers with 4-sided screens. The excess of RGB was a real problem with modern PC hardware, but we're facing down the barrel of a bigger issue in the form of unrelenting LCDs. We're even getting standalone LCDs that you can keep outside your case to display whichever animation or system stats you want.

It's not too hard to imagine cases, coolers, and RAM sticks playing TikToks or M.2 heatsinks playing anime GIFs on loop. The PC is a tool for personal expression, but if this trend continues, it'll no longer be a classy machine built for both performance and esthetics. Only the latter will receive most of the attention from PC builders, and even that will lose its true purpose. Loud designs with flashy LCDs will eliminate everything sophisticated about PC building.

Who asked for so many LCDs?

A tiny LCD screen on your PC displaying system stats or GIFs looks great; massive screens attached to every single component look loud and unnecessary. At that point, it's less about making visual tweaks that enhance your PC's looks, and more about flexing how obnoxious your PC looks compared to others' builds. This growing trend of LCDs on nearly every single component needs to be stopped in its tracks, otherwise we'll find ourselves at the point of no return.