Corsair K100 RGB

[HEXUS]

Corsair's flagship keyboard reviewed and rated.

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[Tunnah]

It can't be 3.2 why can't it be 3 ? I've got a 10ft USB3 extension cable that isn't particularly thick.

[Gentle Viking]

I got myself a Roccat vulcan 120 last weekend as the old Razer keyboard kicked the bucket, found a bundle with the kain 100 mouse, so jumped on that as my mouse was also pretty bad.

Take some getting used to these newfangled keys

[philehidiot]

I love how it has a real time operating system. I'm sick of the relativity effects from my OS working in the increased gravity compared to my brain. Glad they finally got that niggle sorted.

Now, also, for £230 I'd expect options of USB 3.2 and a shorter cable or USB 3.0 with an extension or swapout cable provided in the box for those who need less girth and more length.

Frankly, I'm finding it impossible to believe that keyboards need this level of bloatware and complexity. It has made mine an absolute pain and ensured I won't buy Razor ever again (because it was a systemic problem affecting loads of users and the company never resolved it on a halo product - I don't mind problems, but I expect them to be fixed when I've handed over a tonne of cash). My keyboard downloads the macro key assignments and other settings from the cloud... it won't work properly without an internet connection and a username / password. Let's have a look at the start up impact of their bloatware - "high". I'm running a stupidly fast PC and it is slowed down waiting for the keyboard software to run and connect to the server, so I can use my shortcut keys.

For £230, with an onboard SOC and RAM, I'd expect macro key assignments to be stored in the keyboard. If I'm running a gaming machine, I want as little bloatware running as possible and one look at iCue tells me it's bloated with the best of them. I've had a keyboard before with a load of shortcuts, all configurable within the Windows settings. Can I do this? Can I use the software to configure the lighting and fancy dancy stuff and then store it in the keyboard, disable the iCue on start up, using the Windows utility to manage the shortcut keys? I may lose a feature or two, but it's up to me whether that is worth the trade off.

I have bloatware running for my keyboard, mouse, games (because without leaving Steam running I find I have to spend 20 minutes updating games before I can play them) and sound card (granted that is actually useful to me on a regular basis). Never mind the mobo app centre that's required to stop the fans screeching and the ATI software.... yes, it's still ATI to me.

I want gaming products that don't soak up runtime and RAM with bloat. If they want to include it for those who like it, great, but I'd rather they develop a secondary route to using most of the features without the full bloatware experience. Doesn't matter if it's a bit fiddly or slightly reduces the feature set, that's fine. I built the damned PC, I think I can handle it.

[habilain]

I love how it has a real time operating system. I'm sick of the relativity effects from my OS working in the increased gravity compared to my brain. Glad they finally got that niggle sorted.

FYI, real-time actually has a specific meaning here. Specifically the operating system is engineered to be judged on wall-clock "real" time rather than cycle based CPU time. In practical terms, it means they're really confident in the latency figures for the keyboard.

[Mngereso]

230£ for a keyboard?
The prices for PC peripherals are getting out of hand!
And I'm sick of the argument that if you don't like it you're probably not the target market.
True, there's probably somebody willing to spend that type of money for a keyboard, but that doesn't make it any les absurd.

[Richh]

I've been holding off buying a new keyboard for a while - in part because the K95 series was getting a bit long in the tooth, but mainly because iCue has become such a bloated, buggy mess over the last couple of years that I wanted to see what other people could do.

Now, the Mountain Everest Max looks like a really neat solution. However this has Corsair's design experience and warranty backing, and (when it works) iCue is very powerful. It also seems from the main Corsair forum that their staff have finally twigged that there are a lot of users being turned off the product by iCue and it finally looks like some steps in the right direction are being taken to fix that up. Decisions, decisions...

[3dcandy]

230£ for a keyboard?
The prices for PC peripherals are getting out of hand!
And I'm sick of the argument that if you don't like it you're probably not the target market.
True, there's probably somebody willing to spend that type of money for a keyboard, but that doesn't make it any les absurd.

I've said about this before. Corsair are American and our cousins over there spend far far much more on pc's and upgrades than we do. £230 to them is peanuts when the average wage is something like $22k for 16-19 year olds rising pretty quickly. Heck even the average hourly rate is rising towards $30 an hour now

[RedDwarf]

230£ for a keyboard?
The prices for PC peripherals are getting out of hand!
And I'm sick of the argument that if you don't like it you're probably not the target market.
True, there's probably somebody willing to spend that type of money for a keyboard, but that doesn't make it any les absurd.

It's not even a usable colour IMO. I will never purchase another black keyboard after the last cheap microsoft keyboard I purchased. I am glad it was cheap because it was unusable by me due to the colour.

A few years back the PC and A/V colours changed back to white and silver and I thought that this would be the time to purchase a nice mechanical keyboard. However I have had no luck in doing that so far because of these dreadful black keyboards that every company insists on inflicting on people. I thought that they were just trying to sell off the old black stock but it has never changed. That is even before I begin with the keyswitches! I purchased a key tester and found my ideal keyswitches, a keyswitch which is no longer available! A Cherry White keyswitch which has a very slight click, a nice feedback and great feel for typing. It's perfection if it was available. So it looks like I will never get what I want unless a miracle happens or I build one myself which I might have to do.

[RedDwarf]

I've been holding off buying a new keyboard for a while - in part because the K95 series was getting a bit long in the tooth, but mainly because iCue has become such a bloated, buggy mess over the last couple of years that I wanted to see what other people could do.

Now, the Mountain Everest Max looks like a really neat solution. However this has Corsair's design experience and warranty backing, and (when it works) iCue is very powerful. It also seems from the main Corsair forum that their staff have finally twigged that there are a lot of users being turned off the product by iCue and it finally looks like some steps in the right direction are being taken to fix that up. Decisions, decisions...

So,

I suppose that you are referring to something like their PSU's which do not work correctly like the HX520 which had a very difficult to diagnose hardware fault on some of them which caused occasional system lockups on return from standby because of a fault with the Power good signal. Never again will I waste money on anything by Corsair after my experiences with that POS.

[Monty_Python]

Let's hope they've made the LEDs a bit more reliable that those in the K95.

[philehidiot]

FYI, real-time actually has a specific meaning here. Specifically the operating system is....[insert important engineering stuff here].

You and your.... knowledge and..... understanding. Sod off. I prefer my piss take response.

[tinbin]

gee £230 for a keyboard and only usb 2 passthrough Corsair u can keep it

[Gentle Viking]

My Roccat dont have pass thru at all, and even if it had i would not use it as things are now.
BUT ! when my case mod is done, and it will be on the floor at the end of my fairly large computer table, well something like that might be nice to have, so not having it in keyboard or monitor i will probably have to get some sort of USB router / splitter thing.

[Xlucine]

Why does a keyboard need 2 USB 3 connections?

[philehidiot]

Why does a keyboard need 2 USB 3 connections?

I like to stick things in ports. I don't like to bend or put in any extra effort.