Why it matters to you
PC ganers can now keep the RGB lighting on their SteelSeries keyboard and mouse in sync with their MSI motherboard.
If you’re building a gaming PC, then chances are you’ll want some color to go with all that power. Nothing adds color like LED lighting, and nothing makes that lighting more exciting than synchronizing effects across various system components.
A number of companies have technology that keeps lighting in sync between, say, a motherboard, GPU, and case. Now, there’s a partnership between two separate companies, MSI and SteelSeries, to get their RGB lighting technology in sync as well.
Specifically, MSI and SteelSeries are utilizing the latter’s SteelSeries Engine3 (SSE3) software to control the RGB lighting on MSI’s Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. There’s no word in the companies’ announcement on whether any of MSI’s other motherboards will be plugged into SSE3.
The Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard offers RGB lighting across a number of components, including the I/O cover and heat sink. The LED lights offer up to 16.8 million colors and 17 effects, and can be controlled by MSI’s own Mystic Light app that runs on PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Some of the effects that can be enabled including breathing, wave, flashing, meteor, lighting, and rainbow.
Some of the functionality enabled by the partnership allows the SSE3 application to control the colors and effects of the MSI lights via macros and key/button bindings. Once the MSI motherboard is synced, it can work in parallel to the lighting provided on SteelSeries peripherals such as gaming keyboards and mice.
SSE3 provides a number of features, including PrismSync and GameSense. The latter feature allows users to use RGB lighting effects to indicate in-game situations such as health status and the amount of ammunition available. Some of the SteelSeries products that support SSE3 are the Rival 700 gaming mouse and the Apex M500 keyboard.
Using the SteelSeries integration doesn’t stop gamers from also making use of MSI’s own RGB lighting software. Rather, it’s just another way to allow gamers to customize their gaming rigs and gain access to new ways to keep up with their gaming status.