Corsair K68 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Review

Conclusion

The Corsair range of keyboards has been pretty relentless in quality from the early days when it was part of the Vengeance range, through to today when they are established enough to just be part of the Corsair Gaming range, which covers all their peripherals.

The K68 comes with all the elements you would expect to find on a mechanical gaming keyboard, and especially those that are particular to the company from Fremont, California.

Chassis integrity is outstanding. You can grab it by the corners and twist without it really flexing at all. It will easily withstand even the most ham-fisted typists and certainly endure anyone who has a tendency to go full REEEEE when things don't go their way. For the more normal amongst us you can be near-guaranteed that your fingers will probably wear out before the K68 does. Speaking of wearing out the K68 follows established industry etiquette by utilising Cherry MX switches throughout. We're big fans of the Cherry MX Red as they have a totally smooth response and require the lowest actuation pressure - how hard you have to push to make the key work - of the Cherry range. This combination of sturdy chassis and light key pressure means that the K68 is the quietest mechanical keyboard we've used this side of the special edition models that are specifically designed for silence.

Additionally the extras which make the K68 more than just a mechanical keyboard are all excellent. The lighting, as we have hopefully shown in our pictures, is bright and richly saturated and also has great graduation between conflicting shades. As you would expect the CUE software is powerful. It certainly takes some learning if you want to maximise the capabilities of the keyboard and really get in depth on the possibilities, but it is also user friendly enough to handle the simpler "I just want to turn off the Windows key and make it my favourite colour" tasks too.

As for the splashproofing, there are 9 different ratings available from the official chart, starting at 0 for no liquid protection at all, through 2 as found on the K68, past 5 which is water jets up to 8 which supports continual immersion. Returning to the K68 it is bracketed by rating 1 - vertically falling drops should have no effect - and rating 3 - water spraying from anything below 60° from vertical. Now rating 1 for our purposes is needless, nobody drips water onto their keyboard. Rating 3 however sounds much closer to knocking your coffee cup over as it includes the word splashing, and it often is knocked over when on your desk next to your keyboard. The K68 comes with rating 2 which is described as water dripping from less than 15° from vertical. Dripping. It implies that this is more about protecting you when you miss your mouth, rather than protecting from unexpected arm to beverage interfacing. Now anything is better than nothing, and official standards are notorious for being over specific to alleviate litigation. Think of it more of something to save your bacon like a UPS, rather than something you should deliberately take advantage of.

At a street price of around the £120 mark the K68 fits into the middle of the Corsair mechanical keyboard range, but we're struggling to think of anything it lacks. No you don't get the volume wheel, a USB pass through or dedicated macro keys, but otherwise it's everything you want from a modern RGB mechanical gaming keyboard and with some liquid tolerance as an extra addition.

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