Gaming Keyboard

Top 10 Gaming Keyboard in 2016

A quintessential part of any setup—be it gaming rig or otherwise—is a good keyboard. It’s your trusty aide when you’re pounding your opponents in Counter Strike and commanding your army in StarCraft. As such, it deserves as much recognition and respect as the graphics card you have in your case. With more switches now available in more keyboards, we've refreshed our guide to let you know what's what.

There are two core keyboard types: Mechanical keyboards have individual key switches and metal springs. Rubber dome keyboards—most modern, cheap keyboards—have a sheet of rubber that provides the resistance, tactile feeling, and registers the key press to the computer. Mechanical key switches give an unmistakable, stronger feedback as you type in the form of feeling a bump, hearing a click, and/or feeling a smooth bottom out to the keyboard’s base. Not only does it feel more satisfying than a rubber dome keyboard, it can be more precise, too.

In the early days, choosing a gaming keyboard meant a binary decision of going with either Cherry MX or membrane. That’s no longer the case. Instead, the market is now saturated with a ton of switches that offer a wide range of characteristics. The massive selection can be overwhelming even for a seasoned gamer. We’re hoping to make that decision a little less daunting with our keyboard switch guide.

If you don't care much about the mechanics of mechanical keyboards and just want to know what to use for gaming, here is the list of Top 10 Gaming Keyboard in 2016:

1. Corsair Vengeance K95 RGB

     Cost: $189.99(amazon.com)

Corsair's ultimate gaming keyboard is back, in all its mechanical, customizable, programmable glory. The Corsair K95 RGB updates the previous model Corsair Vengeance K95, with a shorter name and multicolour per-key backlighting that lets you tweak the look of the keyboard to your heart's content. With 18 dedicated macro keys and 16.8 million colours, The K95 RGB is a solid update to one of my favourite keyboards, and the model to get when you want to kick things up another notch.

For those who take PC gaming seriously, a run-of-the-mill office keyboard is probably not going to cut it. That said, gaming keyboards run the gamut, from small and simple to enormous and complex.

If the latter description appeals to you, consider the Corsair Vengeance K95 . This mechanical keyboard is enormous, but it's also an absolute joy to use and offers enough features to satisfy everyone from action/adventure aficionados to hardcore massively multiplayer online (MMO) junkies.

2. Logitech G910 Orion Spark

    Cost: $128.87(amazon.com)

Logitech's G910 Orion Spark is a completely new keyboard with completely new switches, built from the ground up for gaming and full RGB backlighting. As such, it's probably the device where we have the most to talk about because, well, it's entirely unique.

Let's start with the design of the keyboard itself, which is weird enough as it is. The G910 is a similar shape to previous keyboards in Logitech's line up—that is to say, a bit chunky. Even with the smaller of the two wrist rests attached, this thing will take up quite a bit of your desk—thanks to a row of macro keys on the side, another row on the top (above the function row), the dedicated media keys, and a phone dock

3. CoolerMaster Quick Fire XTi

    Cost: $138.06(amazon.com)

Mechanical keyboards have certainly become ubiquitous in the PC gaming market, and Cooler Master has released a number of different models over the years. From clean, minimalist ten-key-less keyboards with nary a gaming feature in sight, to full-sized keyboards with dedicated keys for extra features.

Cooler Master’s Quick Fire range specializes mostly in Cherry MX switches, providing the common trio of switch types of Blue, Red and Brown, with the occasional Green thrown into the mix. Its Quick Fire keyboards are certainly reliable and well-built, as we’ve reviewed a number of them over the years.

The latest entry to Cooler Master’s Quick Fire range is the XTi. While many manufacturers are going with full RGB backlighting and more macro buttons than you know what to do with, CM has kept the XTi surprisingly basic and compact.

4. Logitech G710+

    Cost:  $87.00(amazon.com)

Logitech has a long history of building great gaming keyboards. Its G710+ is a behemoth that’s loaded with features. The G710+ is backlit with white LEDs, and that lighting is divided into two independently controlled zones. One button manages the brightness of the WASD and Arrow keys, while the other button controls the rest of the keyboard. Each zone can be set to any of five brightness levels, including off. At lower levels, some of the larger keys (namely Shift, Tab, and Enter) are lit a bit unevenly, but that’s a minor quibble.

The G710+ has a column of six macro keys stacked on its left side. You can store three different macros in each of these and switch between them on the fly by pressing a companion button, much as you would change stations on your car radio. Unfortunately, the key you press to switch between the three collections of macros isn’t backlit, which makes it hard to locate in the dark (when you’ll need it most).

5. Roccat Ryos MK Pro

    Cost:  $109.99(amazon.com)

Roccat has been making a name for itself in the gaming peripheral market for some time, with well-made mice and keyboards that share functionality between devices and offer unique features for less. Carrying this principle forward is the Roccat Ryos MK Pro , the flagship model for the company's new Ryos keyboard lineup. A mechanical gaming keyboard, the Ryos MK Pro is packed with dozens of customizable options, high-quality built-in features, and a solid upgrade to mechanical keyswitches with individual backlighting—a first for Roccat. The Ryos MK Pro isn't just the best keyboard Roccat has released so far, it's also our new Editors' Choice for gaming keyboards.

6. Razer BlackWidow Chroma

    Cost:  $114.99(amazon.com)

A product that has "Black" and "Chroma" in its name might seem like a bit of an oxymoron but, with Razer's Deathadder, Naga Epic and Kraken 7.1 all getting colorful upgrades, the company certainly wasn't going to leave its signature keyboard out of the fun. The BlackWidow Chroma still has the same key feel and macro options that serious gamers have come to appreciate; it's just a little more dazzling now.

Right out of the box, the BlackWidow Chroma is still a "gorgeous" keyboard according to IGN, who think it looks and feels like it "could really take a pounding for a long time yet still remain stylish-looking." Tom's Guide appreciates how it seems "a little less angular and more subdued" than the typical Razer product, and "would look equally at home in an office and in a gaming nook." Of course, that's only if you forgo the main selling point of the Chroma series -- the customizable backlighting. Gaming Shogun calls the lighting "a sight to behold" and PC World likes how "there’s not a ton of light leakage around the edges of the keys." However, despite the extensive illumination options you might want to restrain yourself from getting too extravagant, as Gaming Shogun found some patterns to be a distraction that made it hard to focus.

7. SteelSeries Apex M800

    Cost:  $175.99(amazon.com)

The SteelSeries Apex M800 is a high-performance gaming keyboard with a quality design, improving on the impressive, but more basic SteelSeries Apex. With individually lit, fully programmable keys, the Apex M800$199.99 at Dell is bristling with features and built to offer consistently high-end performance. The Corsair K95 RGB remains our Editors' Choice for gaming keyboards due to its aluminum body and extra features, like media buttons and thrice the number of dedicated macro keys, but the SteelSeries Apex M800 is a strong performer in its own right.

8. Mad Catz STRIKE TE

    Cost:  $93.99(amazon.com)

When it comes to weapons for battle, some gamers prefer features and functions, while others prize flashy designs. Generally, Mad Catz has gravitated toward the latter, but its latest keyboard may signal a change. The Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. TE is the company's first mechanical gaming keyboard, and while it still has an eye-catching design, it brings a new level of quality to the Mad Catz lineup. Despite the improvements, however, our top pick is still the Roccat Ryos MK Pro, which has a fuller feature set and a more luxurious feel.

9. Corsair Strafe

    Cost:  $129.99(amazon.com)

Corsair may have diversified into the peripherals market a couple of years ago but they currently are one of the most active gaming peripheral developers. The company does well enough in that segment of the market that they recently founded their own gaming brand, Corsair Gaming. Although the company owes much of their success on the first Vengeance keyboards and mice, it is their recent RGB-series that has given them a significant advantage as a talking point among gamers and keyboard enthusiasts.

Although the K65/K70/K95 RGB keyboards are outstanding products, they all share a common flaw - their retail price. Having a fully mechanical keyboard with exclusive Cherry MX RGB switches is an expensive endeavor and, even though their capabilities and performance are excelling, these models are just too expensive for many users and they ultimately paid an early adopter premium as a result. This is especially true for users that do not need or care for programmable RGB per-key backlighting. As a result Corsair is today throwing another card on the table by releasing the STRAFE, a mechanical gaming keyboard that may be limited to red backlighting but supposedly lacks no practical features over the RGB models. The truly interesting part however is that the STRAFE has an MSRP of just $110, nearly half the MSRP of the K70 RGB ($200).

10. Ducky Shine 4

      Cost:  $152.00(amazon.com)

The Ducky Shine 4 is an excellent keyboard that gives you great build quality, a good typing experience and easy customization. Unfortunately, the ease of that customization comes at a cost. The Shine 4 can't handle macros right out of the box, or other advanced programmability. If you don't much care for macros and want a gaming keyboard that works well for typing and general gaming, then the Shine 4 is a good option. Just don't expect the advanced functionality you'd get with customization software.

One of the Shine 4's strengths is how many switch types you have to choose from. You can get Cherry MX Black, Brown, Blue, Green, Red and Clear switches. It's difficult to find a keyboard that comes with so many switch types. It can be especially hard to find keyboards with Green and Clear switches. The Shine 4 gives mechanical keyboard enthusiasts more switch options than any other keyboard on our lineup.