Mice & Keyboards by stefan @ 2015-01-21
Corsair have really outdone themselves with the release of the K70 RGB keyboard, by providing near unlimited possibilities regarding the LED lighting configuration thanks to the CUE software but also a large number of customizations are available per-key.
At first we would like to thank Corsair for sending a sample of their Vengeance K70 RGB Fully Mechanical Gaming Keyboard for testing and reviewing.
Meeting Performance Computing Demands since 1994
"Corsair is a global company bringing innovative, high-performance components to the PC gaming market. Specializing in very high performance memory, ultra-efficient power supplies, and other key system components, our products are the choice of overclockers, enthusiasts, and gamers everywhere.
Founded as Corsair Microsystems in 1994, Corsair originally developed Level 2 cache modules for OEMs. After Intel incorporated the L2 cache in the processor with the release of its Pentium Pro processor family, Corsair changed its focus to DRAM modules, primarily in the server market. In 2002, Corsair began shipping DRAM modules that were specifically designed to appeal to computer overclocking enthusiasts. From its roots in high-performance memory, Corsair has expanded its award-winning product portfolio to include ultra-efficient power supplies, builder-friendly cases, ground-breaking CPU coolers, blazing-fast solid-state drives, and other key system components.
Corsair has developed a global operations infrastructure with extensive marketing and distribution channel relationships. Corsair’s products are sold to end users in over sixty countries worldwide, primarily through leading distributors and retailers."
Legendary mechanical gaming keyboard performance with virtually unlimited customization
The K70 RGB mechanical gaming keyboard begins with the performance of the legendary K70, and adds multicolor per-key backlighting for virtually unlimited customization. Every key is backed with a Cherry MX RGB key switch for precise actuation and superior feel. 104 full key rollover and 100% anti-ghosting ensure accurate gameplay.
Multi color, per key backlighting for virtually unlimited customization
Every one of the keys can be assigned a unique backlighting color from a palette of 16.8 million. This gives you opportunities for key binding that you’ve never seen before in a mechanical keyboard.
100% Cherry MX Red Key Switches
Cherry MX Red key switches deliver smooth, linear key response with a wide actuation zone. They have the responsiveness you need for perfectly executing double and triple taps, and there’s no audible click or tactile “bump.”
Features
Aircraft-grade black anodized brushed aluminum finish
You get impressive looks, light weight, and the rugged durability you need for a keyboard that’s going to see a lot of action.
100% anti-ghosting with 104 key rollover on USB
Every keystroke translates into accurate gameplay—even when multiple keys are pressed. There’s no signal degradation, and it keeps up with you, no matter how fast you play.
Detachable soft-touch wrist rest
Give your wrists a break, or remove it if it gets in the way.
Assign macros to any key
Just one more reason why the K70 RGB is one of the most advanced gaming keyboards the world has ever seen – you can set up any key to trigger a macro. The all-new control panel software makes it easy. FPS, MOBA, or even Minecraft… the K70 RGB has it covered.
Fast and fluid RGB animation
The K70 RGB uses a Panasonic display controller for amazing multicolor light shows -- pulsing, waving and cascading lighting in 16.8 million colors.
Onboard memory to take performance and lighting settings with you
Do you take your gaming to go? Built-in storage lets you set it up once, and take it anywhere.
Easy-access dedicated multimedia controls
You don’t just play games – you play music and video, too. Play, stop, pause, skip tracks and adjust volume directly from the K70 RGB.
The power of CUE
The K70 RGB can have each key assigned its own unique backlighting color and intensity for virtually unlimited customization. When the action is fast and furious, microseconds count, and multicolor key bindings can put you in control of your game like never before. The intuitive and powerful Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) software makes it easy to set up sophisticated animated macros and lighting effects for a visually amazing experience.
Static lighting
Change any key on the keyboard to your choice of 16.8 million colors and 10 brightness levels. You can create, save, and load custom patterns for your favorite games.
Color cycling
Cycle through multiple colors with your choice of speed and color palettes. You can set either the whole keyboard to scroll, or just the keys you want.
Waves and ripples
Customize the color palette, direction, duration, and velocity, and have the wave flow across the entire keyboard, or just the keys you want.
Reactive typing
Set up single-key reactive typing, or create a multi-key ripple effect. You can choose single-layer lighting, where keys light up as you type, or multi-layer, and have the keys change color.
As time passes, we are seeing more and more peripheral manufacturers launching quite a bit of products featuring multicolored LEDs; Corsair has teamed directly with Cherry in order to use their latest MX transparent switches in their gaming keyboards which have been positively acclaimed in the past. Recently we have taken a look upon of their latest K70 RGB keyboard, the version which uses Cherry MX RED RGB switches. The keyboard is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard box, which features some of the main product characteristics on the top layer:
The keyboard characteristics are described in more detail on the sides but also on the back side of the packaging:
After we have removed the top layer, we have ended up with a regular cardboard box:
By lifting the top cover we will be able to spot the K70 RGB, which is also wrapped inside a transparent plastic bag, for additional protection; compared to other manufacturers, the packaging of this specific product is nothing fancy, in order not to raise costs unnecessary:
As documentation, we will receive the manual, but also two leaflets regarding warranty:
The K70 RGB comes with an aircraft-grade black anodized brushed aluminum finish on the top layer, which brings the durability needed for long gaming sessions. Also, the K70 RGB is equipped with 104-key rollover on USB:
This specific model comes with the new Corsair Gaming logo, which has brought a lot of controversy to the masses:
Unlike models from other manufacturers, the Space key is also lighted:
Further to the right we have the light intensity button along with the Windows key lock, but also LEDs for Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock:
In the vicinity we have the Mute button along with the Volume wheel and the Multimedia keys:
Corsair has included in the packaging a palm rest as extra bundle, which can be attached when necessary:
The palm rest features a rubberized texture, which offers good grip and is also pleasant to the touch:
The K70 RGB is also equipped with a switch which permits us to modify the USB polling rate, in milliseconds. Available settings are 1, 2, 4, and 8ms, but we also have a selectable “BIOS” option which reduces the pooling rate and enables compatibility settings for some motherboards:
Here is also a view on the lateral side of the keyboard, in order to see how the palm rest and the keyboard chassis do combine:
On the bottom layer we will be able to see no less than four plastic feet in order to raise the keyboard to specific angles, but also smaller, rubberized feet:
The central sticker tells us more regarding the product code number, but also on the input rating:
Here are some close shots of the available feet:
Depending on which bus we are using, we should connect the keyboard differently, as we have seen recommendations on the Corsair forums:
USB 3.0
Use only one connector (the one with the keyboard icon)
USB 2.0
Use both connectors; plug in the connector with the two arrows icon first and the connector with the keyboard icon second
The new Cherry MX RGB RED switches allow RGB Single Key Illumination with Cherry Refract Technology. This technology means that a computer-calculated lens-set is diverging the lighting from the SMD-LED on the circuit board loss-free to the key cap; also, we are dealing with a linear switch, which has a distance to actuation point of 2mm and an operating force of about 45cN. The housing base is made of translucent plastic polymer and has a recess for the SMD LED on the circuit board:
Thanks to the aluminum base, the LED light for each switch creates a very interesting effect:
After connecting the keyboard for the first time, In the default mode all keys will light up red except WASD and directional keys which will pulsate white:
If we look on the side, the translucent plastic body of the Cherry MX RGB Red switches looks awesome:
Right after installing the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE), we were prompted to update the firmware of the keyboard:
While initially the GUI might seem pretty regular, it is one of the most complex keyboard software GUIs we have seen in a very long time, almost too complex we might say; the main sections are placed in the top left corner, which will open up themselves a series of sub-sections. For each Profile, we can adjust key assignments, performance options and also custom LED lighting options:
Here are the available options when right-clicking on a specific key for remapping:
The Actions Editor is well-organized and quite in-depth; here we can define Macros, full Text sequences, Keystrokes, Shortcuts, DPI values, Timers, Mouse functions or Media Control keys:
Macro
Text
Keystroke
Shortcut
DPI
Timer
Mouse
Media Control
The Performance tab allows us which functions should be disabled when the Keyboard Lock is on:
The Corsair Gaming Software is pretty in-depth when it comes to LED light customization; there are several types of lighting which apply to the Vengeance K70 RGB keyboard:
-background lighting – this is the default lighting while a particular mode is activated, resumes when no other lighting scheme is activated and ends when you switch modes;
-foreground lighting – this mode is activated when certain start conditions are met and ends when an end condition is met. By default, the foreground lighting ends when you switch modes, though you can also configure it to persist between mode changes. When foreground lighting ends, the background lighting will return;
-action lighting – when you create an action (for example a macro, keystroke or timer action), you can specify a lighting for that action. The action lighting will take precedence over both background and foreground lighting while the action is running;
-type lighting – you can configure lighting effects that begin when a key is pressed; this is defined on a per-profile level and affects all keys on the keyboard that are not assigned action lightning effects
The software allows us to define lighting groups, which are groups of keys that can be assigned a foreground lighting scheme to distinguish them from other keys:
Several different types of lighting effects can be used on the Corsair K70 RGB keyboard:
-solid – a solid lighting effect which appears as a solid color; it can be applied to single or multiple keys, as well as groups;
-gradient – a gradient lighting effect causes a light to start with one color and gradually changes through one or more other colors over time. It can be applied to single or multiple keys, as well as groups;
-ripple – a ripple lighting effect which causes lights to radiate outward in a circle from the pressed key to other keys in the defined group;
-wave – a wave lighting effect which causes lights to spread in a wave pattern across keys in a group when you press a key that belongs to the group
Depending on the lighting type, we have a different type of editor:
The Settings menu comes with the Device, Program and Support sections; from the Device menu we will be able to disable the lighting completely, set the current keyboard layout, the polling rate and here we can also see the installed firmware version and bootloader version:
The Program tab allows setting the language of the GUI, the OSD settings or add multiple media players to the mix:
From the Support section, we can request help from the team, the product user manual and more:
Corsair have really outdone themselves with the release of the K70 RGB keyboard, by providing near unlimited possibilities regarding the LED lighting configuration thanks to the CUE software but also a large number of customizations are available per-key.
The keyboard is built on the proven platform which we have seen on the older models, which includes the aircraft-grade brushed aluminum base but also fully-mechanical key switches; the switches are not your regular Cherry MXes but the latest RGB models, which are attentively designed in order to have fast and fluid RGB animations thanks to the Panasonic display controller.
The keyboard is also capable of 100% anti-ghosting with 104-key rollover on USB, to facilitate optimal responsiveness when multiple keys are being pressed.
The online manual of the keyboard is quite big and if you are into customization, you should really check it out since otherwise things will get hairy; there is another option though if you do not want to mess with the advanced configuration and that is to go to Corsair forums and download from the large collection of pre-made profiles.
What we really like about Corsair keyboards is the Volume wheel, which is very useful and easy to access when needed.
For added value, Corsair also includes the detachable wrist-rest which features a rubberized finish.
On the other end, Corsair needs to fix the software/firmware issues which are mentioned quite a bit on their forums, the most frequent one being the one we have experienced ourselves: after Steam gets launched, the LED lighting system would freeze and not resume unless the computer is power-cycled.
At the moment, the K70 RGB is quite expensive so it can had for about 216 Euros; enthusiasts will really appreciate the complexity of the LED lighting system and could skip over the price aspect considering that they are buying a product for many years to come.
We would like to thank again to Corsair for making this review possible!