Anyone know much about keyboards?

bigmike20vt said:

Currently using a piece of crap after my zboard packed up 12 month ago. My parents did not know what to get me so asked them to get a corsair vengeance k95 as was a good price (70 quid) 

Do you folk reckon a good mechanical keyboard makes a difference for gaming?

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I picked up a K70 a couple years ago. I'm happy with it--it feels precise and solid, but it is a little clicky. I got the Cherry Brown switches, which are supposedly half-way between the Red (strong loud click) and the Blue (soft and silent). 

The nice thing about a good gaming keyboard is it won't drop any input no matter how many keys you have held down. Playing with a cheap Dell keyboard, I found it could only handle about 3 simultaneous key presses (of some specific keys) and would then ignore any more. 

I have the Corsair K95 (non RGB older version).

The noise of a mechanical keyboard and how suited to gaming it is are determined by the key type.

The K95 uses Cherry MX Red keys. These are fairly quiet (silent if you don't hit them hard). They are also good for games.

I used to use a Razer Black Widow Ultimate. It had Cherry MX Blue keys. These are loud (like @TwoHedWlf demonstrates). They also aren't good for games in my opinion, it's much harder to double tap a key. The problem is the clicky bit holds the key in the active state after being pressed until almost 100% of the force is released. You almost need to take your finger off the key before it releases so can be double tapped.

So the blues are great for typing but will piss off everyone around you and not great for games. The reds are quiet and game oriented. There's a heap more with various statistics.

One issue I had with the K95: the backlights die. I've had over 30 keys lose their backlight. It's a common problem, people get the K95 replaced and the replacement starts losing backlights. I don't know what the newer RGB model is like for that. Otherwise it's an awesome keyboard.

Sorry, I had Red and Blue mixed up above. 

Anyone know much about keyboards?

They are long flat hard things with lots of moving scale like bits on the top, normally black but on rare occasion can be seen changing color in their natural habitat, usually covered in some strange alien symbols. 

My personal philosophy on keyboards has always been to use a Gameboard such as this: http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/product/g13-advanced-gameboard for actual gaming, and for all other, non-gaming purposes I get a super cheap keyboard.   I mean, the occasional spill is inevitable, and it's easier to just replace a $20 keyboard once per year than to invest in a really nice keyboard and have to worry about keeping it safe and clean.

Plus, gameboards are just nice. They're super ergonomic, take up 1/4 the space of a full keyboard,  you can configure 'em however you want, including programmable macro keys, they don't have any unnecessary extra keys for you to worry about hitting on accident, they usually have an LCD screen (not that that helps much for VR gaming, lol)  and I always get good use out of the thumbstick on the side, too.

Come to think of it, I haven't used my own G13 since before I got my Rift...  maybe I'll set it up to use for Fallout 4 (run through VorpX)

I recently read an article about the fact that investing in various Gamer Keyboards doesn't really give any noteworthy advantages. I felt better cause I've spent some decent money over the years on keyboards and the fancier they get, the more annoying they seemed to become.

I like smooth keys with a rapid response when pressed. A small compact layout, and some decent lighting.

Everything else seems like overkill with some serious diminishing returns.

Thanks guys. Mine is or will be the older non rgb one. A bit worried about the state of the leds but its too late now. If any fail i will return it just before warranty ends

I think you're fine with your Corsair Vengeance. Hell I might buy one now lol

Here is a great video that covers your current Corsair vs fancier keyboards and general requirements,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eabL1vJMt0