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After years of personal use we reviewed the top 5 best mechanical gaming keyboards, and if you’re in a rush check out the Corair K70 RGB which, full disclosure is my all time favorite keyboard, and I a still own my original from 5 years ago despite spilling beer over it and having to wash it off in the sink!
This advanced keyboard is equipped with a full set of function keys including light controls, media controls, and game mode settings. The backlighting of the keyboard is available in either silver or gray. Because of the single-color backlighting, the Logitech G413 Carbon does not offer lighting playback.
This advanced keyboard is equipped with a full set of function keys including light controls, media controls, and game mode settings. The backlighting of the keyboard is available in either silver or gray. Because of the single-color back lighting, the Logitech G413 Carbon does not offer lighting playback.
The Logitech G413 Carbon has a full set of function keys, but the keyboard does not have any media control buttons, which can give you reason to pause while you are in the middle of a game. However, the keyboard also has a cable pathway where you can connect your headphones so it does not completely neglect the clear necessity for media.
The lighting adjustments of the keyboard can be adjusted from keys on the keyboard. The keyboard does offer backlighting, which makes all the keys very visible. Visible keys make it easier for you to find the necessary keys while you are playing.
Only one color is offered for backlighting (silver or red depending on the keyboard you buy). Because there is only one color, there is not playback lighting available, which can be a big deterrent for some.
The Logitech G413 Carbon is built to be durable. It has a durability of up to 70 million keypresses. To even further increase the durability of the keyboard, it has a brushed aluminum-magnesium alloy top. Durability is crucial to any intense game play, and this keyboard comes braced for the challenge.
The keyboard you choose will work better for you if you like the way that it looks. In our Logitech G413 Carbon review, we considered how the design has as much impact on the gaming experience as the features that the keyboard offers.
The keyboard strives to mirror the intensity of the games that you play on it. There is not an external shell on the keyboard. Instead the powerful looking base and backlighting of the keyboard are seen fully. There are two different colors offered. There is a black keyboard with vibrant red backlighting. There is also a steel colored keyboard with white backlighting.
While the two looks are awesomely fierce, the lack of an external shell means that there is no protection surrounding the keys. This can give the appearance of the keys seeming to stick up. This, however, is not so much of a problem as it is a personal preference.
The frame is also incredibly thin and lightweight. A lightweight keyboard allows for more engaging and agile gameplay. The durable yet lightweight frame is why the Logitech G413 Carbon is one of the best keyboards on the market.
The performance of the Logitech G413 Carbon is hard to beat when it comes to online gaming. The keyboard is nothing if not incredibly fast. It has 1.5mm short-throw actuation, which is impressive to say the least.
Response time can be all the difference between a win and a loss. The incredibly quick short-throw actuation time has been programed to give you the best response time possible and as much of a leg up in competition as possible.
There are also a variety of nearly silent Romer-G switches and faceted key caps. These faceted keycaps can be used to replace the first five number keys with keys that are specifically geared towards gaming.
The Romer-G switches are also incredibly durable, which gives you one less thing to worry about while you are trying to play your best game. They are said to endure up to 70 million actuations. The Logitech G413 Carbon’s ability to transform to what you need it to be is part of what makes it a stand-out keyboard.
While the Logitech G413 Carbon doesn’t boast about a wide array of extra features, it still stands up as a high-quality keyboard for gaming. The simplistic quality allows the Logitech G413 Carbon to serve your given purposes while saving you money. Its simplicity is also what makes it possible for the product to be sold at a relatively affordable cost.
While features such as playback lighting are disappointingly not included, the keyboard’s scientifically proven durability and speed are enough to enhance your game without all the extra features that some lesser keyboards may charge you extra for.
That is why, unless your entire quest to find the right keyboard is based in a desire for certain special features, we believe that the Logitech G413 Carbon is a great buy. It is sure to help you play a great game and be a competitive force in the online gaming world.
While the HyperX Alloy might have a couple drawbacks, its lighting and comfort are enough to ensure that you have an optimal gaming experience.
The HyperX has a stunning design, with its red backlighting and amazing 18 LED light bar, clearly showing the designers value style as well as functionality. It also includes a soft palm rest for your hands, and dedicated media keys. The HyperX Alloy Elite features textured, titanium colored key caps for the most frequently used and important gaming keys, making them that much easier to locate. The framing is solid steel, making it incredibly durable and stable for any kind of gaming. The sturdy, solid keys make for an even more satisfying experience.
The keyboard also comes with a mesh pouch for portability, and the bulky cable can be detached for easy carrying around. The keys can be easily replaced, if needed, and the various dedicated keycaps offered with this model are easily attachable.
The keyboard comes in a variety of colors—including Cherry MX Red, Cherry MX Blue, and Cherry MX Brown—and its red backlighting is the star of the design, although it has very specific lighting settings. It has six lighting settings and four brightness modes. It is compact and solid, due to its steel frame. However, its full size is still small and compact enough that you can easily keep your mouse close by during gaming. Despite its heavy keys, it is not overly loud, so it is much easier to focus on the game.
Above the main keys, there is a group of dedicated media buttons, new to this model. The keys make it far easier to navigate with this keyboard. Buttons for play, pause, skipping, mute, and volume are all visible due to this new feature, and all of them are just as sturdy as the rest of the board’s keys.
The lighting bar mentioned earlier sits between the main keys and the dedicated media keys, and provide another beautiful design aspect of this great board. The lighting options are set by the manufacturer. Although there are only six, the elegance and ambience of the lighting bar make it more than worth the few options offered.
The multitude of color options for the board—Cherry MX Red, Cherry MX Blue, and Cherry MX Brown—all make for different gaming experiences, but allow any gamer to feel a little more personalized in their choice of board. Many love the Red and Blue options for gaming, and each key color makes for a different sound experience as well as gaming experience. Those who choose the brown keys say that it is great for typing, though many prefer the other colors for gaming. However, overall the different colors make for a wonderful experience and let you feel a little more personalized in your choices.
The main drawback of the design of the board is its massive cable, which is thickly braided. Its size makes it less flexible than other keyboards we reviewed in our best round up review for 2024, check it out here. There is also no wrist rest, though the board offers a palm rest for your hands. However, overall, the design of this board is solid and impressive.
The various colored key options you have make your gaming experience that much more enjoyable—most people prefer the Cherry MX Red keys, as it really gets them in the spirit of gaming. The solid frame and the titanium dedicated keycaps for the relevant gaming keys make this board that much easier to navigate and use. Some gamers have mentioned a metallic sound if the keys are pressed rapidly, though in normal gaming the keys function well and the “sounds” of the keys only add to the gaming experience. The keys are also a bit closer together than on some other gaming boards, but its compact structure means that you can keep your gaming area tighter and neater for more controlled gameplay.
The solid steel frame makes the board incredibly stable for any kind of gaming. Its keys are not too “mushy” and feel secure in their place for even those gamers who love to button mash. Its USB 2.0 makes it great for connectivity, and it even has a second USB if it is ever needed. The bulky cord that comes with the keyboard is detachable, making the solid keyboard easily portable and durable for transportation to tournaments, visits, vacations, or wherever you want to take it.
Its smooth connection means there is no need for tedious installation software once the board is plugged in. Furthermore, the already cool backlighting and LED lights that come on the board have their own dedicated buttons right on the board, so you can easily cycle through the light settings and the brightness at any time. However, it would still be nice if there were more options for lighting.
Overall, this keyboard is a great choice for any gamer. It’s solid and durable, but lightweight and easily transportable. It has detachable cords and multiple color choices, although we personally preferred the blue. Though some keyboards just above this price range might have more features, the price of this board is more than worth the features that it comes with. Its dedicated media keys and titanium, textured gaming keycaps make the board more efficient and user-friendly than a lot of boards on the market. Its great LED light bar and backlighting also make it one of the more stylish choices on the market. Out of the many keyboards out there, the HyperX Alloy Elite is definitely one of the best for the gamer who loves just that smallest hint of eye-catching style.
The keyboard is fantastically durable, which is what makes it one of the best gaming keyboards. The Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2 brags of an 80 million keystroke durability, which makes it perfect for intense nights spent gaming.
Key Type: When we used the product, the ease of use of the keys was top notch. The keys have gold plated contact points, which ensured that we didn’t miss any keystrokes. The keys are also fitted with a higher quality spring that equals an operating force of 50G. We found that the green switch, ‘clicky keys’ had a good tangible feel when being used. All the keys are housed in a protective casing that keeps debris and dirt away from delicate parts. Another feature we really like about the keys is the ten-key roll over. This has ensured that you never miss a key stroke, or even up to ten key strokes. The keyboard has built in anti-ghosting technology. This is how it helps you to execute the ten commands at the same time, every time you need to.
Lighting: This was a huge draw for us. The lighting on the keyboard far exceeds its competitors. The keyboard comes complete with an LED indicator screen. These LEDs light up the full number pad and macro keys. The customizable lighting software is especially nice for this keyboard. This means that each key can be customizable to 16.8 million color options. We customized our keyboard to look like a firework display that can ripple away every time one presses a key. You can also make the keys look glittery. In essence, you can change their look everyday if you choose to. In fact, the lists of lighting effects that you can use include; reactive, starlight, wave, breathing, static, spectrum cycling, fire, and ripple. You can put all these together in a profile in the Chroma workshop, making your own unique profile every time you play. The most useful part of the lighting is to highlight the W, A, S, D keys that are often game specific to the games you might play.
Build Quality: These specific keyboards are engineered specifically for long term durability, which is something you should look for in good keyboards. We have learned that the technology is being manufactured end to end in-house, meaning that the requirements are even stricter for each individual product being manufactured. This often leads to a life-span of up to eighty million key strokes.
The keyboard comes with a comfy, squishy wrist wrest for those long gaming sessions. This wrist wrest is included and can pop on and off the keyboard. This will add another inch or so to the front of the keyboard. The BlackWidow V2 Chroma is ergonomically designed to support your wrists, making lengthy typing and playing sessions much more comfortable.
We also liked the look of the keyboard as well. It has a matte black finish with a gradient casing that makes it very easy on the eyes. Not only is it comfortable, but it is designed with multi-award winning mechanical switches. These switches actuate an optimal distance. This gave us more speed and responsiveness then we have had with any other keyboard. The switches have become so popular that they have become the standard for all mechanical keyboards. It also comes with a braided fiber cable, ensuring that it won’t get tangled with the hundreds of other cables you have behind your computer.
The Razer offers three color coded switches to choose from. These switches are Orange, Green and Yellow. Each has their own specific benefits.
All models have programmable macro keys that have a very useful LED panel that lets you know when recording is taking place. This is not only very functional for MMO players, but also is a good feature for casual gamers because you can program app functions to one key.
There is also a dedicated mode just for gaming that disables the windows key, which as any gamer knows is a great feature for those of us who have lost a match by accidently hitting the windows key.
If you have saved unique gaming profiles for your keyboard, rest assured that everything is saved to the cloud. Therefore, there is no problem taking the keyboard with you to other machines. It is also very versatile, as it can work cross-platform between Windows and MAC OS.
Related Buying Guides
Waterproof with a high-end build quality, speed and durability that the Corsair K70 RGB offers, the keyboard stands up as a worthwhile purchase for any gamer.
Well made, water proof keyboard that can take rage quits and has personally out lasted the authors DasKeyboard!
The new mechanical keyboard K70 RGB by Corsair is a favorite for programmers and gamers alike. We like the mechanical keyboard because the keys have a springy and precise feel to them. With the K70, Corsair has introduced the “Cherry MX Speed” keys, which definitely have enhanced the keyboard experience.
Corsair’s LUX line of keyboards for gaming are often in the top 10 list of many reviews. There are three types of Cherry MX switches to choose from, and all are designed to match your play style. Especially with their large front key caps and programmable lighting schemes, this has the potential to up your gameplay with the on-the-fly macro programming.
The Rapidfire features are great to use, and makes good use of space, letting the keys have room. The textured wrist wrest was also a big plus, as it can come on and off at your whim. The media buttons are very discreet, and there is an option for ‘game mode’, which disables keys that could interrupt gameplay.
The keyboard comes in at 18.6 x 8.3 inches, so it isn’t small by any means. However, it does make good use of space. It gives the keys breathing room, which is great if you like to not have your fingers cramped together during play. It also has the large detachable wrist wrest.
The big difference between the standard RGB and the Rapidfire is the alternative textured keys. These keys helped us immensely during gaming. If your fingers get sweaty from intense gameplay, particularly from first person shooter matches, the textured keys ensure you always know and feel which buttons you are pressing.
We were very happy with the performance of the Corsair K70. The extremely responsive Cherry Red keys make for accurate and fast typing. The soft touch on the surface of the keys makes for a good grip for all those long gaming sessions.
The labeling on the keys as well as the backlighting on the keyboard really made it easy for us to see a clear readout. The contoured keys aren’t as clear, as they don’t display the secondary function of the particular key. We found the backlighting on the media keys to be a little weak, but this is not a huge issue.
The contoured keys were our favorite part of the keyboard, and they worked really well. They provide the right amount of tactile cue, which in turn made it easier to locate and relocate the right finger position when in the middle of a game.
The Corsair K95 RGB Platinum is also designed for durability. Much like the Corsair K70 RGB, the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum has a frame that is made of anodized brushed aluminum that is aircraft-grade. This allows for not only durability but lightness.
Well made, bomb proof keyboard that can take rage quits, if you want more features, light effects and macro buttons than the K70, then this is your keyboard!
Today’s standards for keyboards most often prioritize durability, customization potential, comfort, transportability, and a handful of other important qualities for professional and recreational gamers alike. Considering the purchase of a new keyboard as an investment, we always like to be sure that the keyboard we are testing and reviewing matches up with what the industry is currently capable of producing. Most of all, the keyboard should be balanced when it comes to well-rounded quality.SALE
In addition to the sleek design and lightweight yet durable build, another draw for this keyboard over other the markets other top gaming keyboards is its 8MB profile storage. Gamers can now store and access up to three stored profiles on the go, without depending on external software. With this new feature, gamers don’t need to spend as much time setting up, and can spend more time gaming.
Back to that brand new LightEdge technology: not only does this keyboard include customizable backlighting for the keys, but it also includes customizable backlighting for each individual key. There is also a nineteen-zone light bar at the top for even more options. Each gamer is able to customize their keyboard easily utilizing the user-friendly Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) application to select and program multi-colored lighting effects.
In addition to its impressive storage and lighting customization capabilities, this keyboard is also cutting-edge in its layout and design of its macro keys. This keyboard offers six programmable macro keys, which is actually less than in previous iterations of this keyboard. The downsizing to six macro keys means that this keyboard is able to be smaller, more lightweight, and more durable, while still keeping the quality functionality of several keys for in-game macros.
For gamers, these keys are beautiful texturally and designed to be easy to find mid-game. They are also contoured so that it is much harder to accidentally press them. These macro keys are also customized by using the CUE app, which is somehow able to be incredibly user-friendly without compromising complexity and a variety of options.
The designers of this keyboard really took practicality as well as comfort into account in including several timesaving and functional new elements including the dedicated volume and multimedia controls. These controls save gamers the trouble of having to interrupt a game to fix or change the audio.
In addition to this, Corsair has also included on this keyboard the capability for optional wrist rests. This is a wonderful investment into the comfort of gamers who play for hours at a time. Even better, instead of forcing it on gamers who buy this keyboard, Corsair makes the wrist rest detachable, so it can be added or taken off easily. The rest is dual-sided and very comfortable. It really makes a difference in comfort after a long gaming session to be able to use the wrist rest, and therefore definitely increases the gaming experience overall.
In addition to the sleek design and lightweight yet durable build, another draw for this keyboard is its 8MB profile storage. Gamers can now store and access up to three stored profiles on the go, without depending on external software. With this new feature, gamers don’t need to spend as much time setting up, and can spend more time gaming.
Back to that brand new LightEdge technology: not only does this keyboard include customizable backlighting for the keys, but it also includes customizable backlighting for each individual key. There is also a nineteen-zone light bar at the top for even more options. Each gamer is able to customize their keyboard easily utilizing the user-friendly Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) application to select and program multi-colored lighting effects.
In addition to its impressive storage and lighting customization capabilities, this keyboard is also cutting-edge in its layout and design of its macro keys. Offering six programmable macro keys, which is actually less than in previous iterations of this keyboard. The downsizing to six macro keys means that this keyboard is able to be smaller, more lightweight, and more durable, while still keeping the quality functionality of several keys for in-game macros.
For gamers, these keys are beautiful texturally and designed to be easy to find mid-game. They are also contoured so that it is much harder to accidentally press them. These macro keys are also customized by using the CUE app, which is somehow able to be incredibly user-friendly without compromising complexity and a variety of options.
The designers of this keyboard really took practicality as well as comfort into account in including several timesaving and functional new elements including the dedicated volume and multimedia controls. These controls save gamers the trouble of having to interrupt a game to fix or change the audio.
In addition to this, Corsair has also included on this keyboard the capability for optional wrist rests. This is a wonderful investment into the comfort of gamers who play for hours at a time. Even better, instead of forcing it on gamers who buy this keyboard, Corsair makes the wrist rest detachable, so it can be added or taken off easily. The rest is dual-sided and very comfortable. It really makes a difference in comfort after a long gaming session to be able to use the wrist rest, and therefore definitely increases the gaming experience overall.
After the initial inspection of the design and functions of the product, we immediately were excited to see how it matched up to previous keyboards in terms of performance. Our testers were not disappointed. The CUE application was incredibly easy to use, and it was possible to program a series of lighting effects for the keyboard in a matter of minutes. It is also easy to change it in case you change your mind and want to go back to default settings. The keyboard is also incredibly responsive during game-play. The macro keys are a little bit more difficult to program, but ultimately ridiculously worth it. The biggest difference between this keyboard and previous keyboards is that the Corsair K95 RBG has insanely high responsivity.
In terms of features, design, and performance, there really isn’t a match out there right now for the Corsair K95 RGB keyboard. This keyboard is a worthwhile purchase for any long-term gamer looking for a keyboard that will withstand hours of intense gaming, and possibly traveling from the home control center. It is also a great choice for anyone who would make frequent use of one of its best features, the programmable macro keys.
For casual gamers not wanting to fork over the money, this might not be the right keyboard for you, but for anyone even the least bit excited by the 8MB profile storage, the CUE customizable lighting effects, or the dedicated volume and multimedia controls, we recommend this keyboard as a high-quality, cost-effective investment in your gaming experience.
In competitive gaming, hardware performance is critical, and in all honesty any of the gaming keyboards will perform well in during game play. However, if you had to make me choose the best gaming keyboard I would go with the Corsair K70, it’s a great gaming keyboard in terms of quality and key accuracy… However, I could be slightly biased having owned one for 2 years (which has never let me down even after spilling a beer over it!).
If you’re on a super tight budget checkout the Redragon M711 Cobra which is a great mouse for the price but don’t expect Razer, Zowie or Logitech build quality. If you don’t want cable all over your desk than check out the Logitech G903 LIGHTSPEED, it’s an amazing mouse and is best used with the mouse pad, it performed so well it was not noticeable the mouse was wireless.
