Is it worth it?

[TSN]

Hi, are mechanical keyboards worth it? The price and even to buy one?
I got a complete gaming setup (gaming monitor, mouse and headset), but I still have a 5 year old standard HP keyboard which is delivered with every standard PC, and I'm fine with it.
Can you still suggest a mechanical one if I tell you I don't need one? Or are there really many performance/gaming advantages?

[Arya]

A good mechanical keyboard is absolutely worth having. Not only for performance, but for comfort and for creating a system more tailored to you.

But picking the right keyboard is essential, with more than a dozen different key types available and with the mainstream brands being a minefield of bad design, cheap materials and shambolic quality control.

[⛧EyMi Mayhem⛧]

If it's for gaming, make sure what you want, a kb for fast pacing, typing, pure gaming, a mix of both and so on. Check this guide it might help.
http://www.pcgamer.com/best-mechanical-switches-for-gaming/

My personal top pick, corsair mechanical kb's
I have the strafe rgb silent and I'm pretty happy with it, but would also say check the corsair k series or alternative logitech orion or G Pro. *depends on your budget.

[Arya]

I fully expect this will be a controversial statement, but I would avoid the mainstream OEMs. That means Corsair, Razer, Logitech, Cooler Master and anybody else who thinks LEDs justify a $300 pricetag.

All of these OEMs are fairly expensive, but they don't do anything to justify the price. All of them use cheap, nasty plastics. All of them are quite basic designs. And all of them suffer from poor quality control, I'm sad to say especially Corsair and Razer. They just don't make good financial sense. Not when brands like Ducky offer comprehensively better products in the same price bracket.

Ducky is probably your best option. They're much higher quality than major OEMs, and you're paying for the build and the materials rather than the badge and the LEDs. DasKeyboard are even better, although their superb build quality comes with a huge price tag to match.
--------------------------

As a writer and gamer, I spend hours a day using a keyboard. So having the right board matters to me, and I'm willing to spend whatever it takes for a board that'll last me for years.

I actually built my own custom board. I started with a DasKeyboard Ultimate 4, probably the best frame on the market right now. Onto that I've added mixed switches - Gateron brown stems with Cherry Brown springs. Ideally you want a hybrid - Gateron stems are better, just as Cherry springs are better. Finished with Cherry MX O-Rings for silence.

DasKeyboard's weakness is the caps, they wear out quickly when used heavily. So I'm using Gateron Glorious, they're comfortable and don't show wear as readily. And they're cheaper to replace. The unmarked white looks.. interesting on an unmarked black board. I personally like it's weirdness.

Total cost: $324 AUD + an hour's work with a keypuller assembling my mods.

[Astro_80 (WASH YOUR HANDS!)]

Yes, it is indeed worth purchasing a Mechanical Keyboard. I personally use a Corsair K70 RGB RAPIDFIRE. My advice is find a store and ask the sales guy if you can sample some keyboards with different switches.

Reading this article will help guide you in determining which mechanical keyboard is right for you:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-newbie-tips-buying-mechanical-keyboard/

[Arya]

Publicado originalmente por Astro_80:

Yes, it is indeed worth purchasing a Mechanical Keyboard. I personally use a Corsair K70 RGB RAPIDFIRE. My advice is find a store and ask the sales guy if you can sample some keyboards with different switches.

K70 Rapidfire, I had one of those. #nostalgia

It only lasted six months before dropping dead completely. Some of the keyswitches were so loose and so badly made that they literally fell off when I shook the board to clean it. It's possibly the most shambolic build quality I've ever seen, I couldn't recommend Corsair without feeling that I was selling somebody a horse with Stage IV cancer.

[oobymach]

+1 for corsair, I've got 2 K70's now, one red led one rgb both with cherry red switches and I can't recommend them enough, bought both refurbished from newegg and never had an issue with either typing or gaming (except that the layout spacing takes some getting used to if you're coming from say a tight packed microsoft keyboard). Build quality is solid and durable, imo best bang for your buck especially refurbished on sale. The red led cost less than $100 and the rgb cost me $120 (Canadian).

I hear the cherry red speed version isn't great/fails from use but none of my keys are loose or broken and I've been heavily typing/occasional gaming close to 2 years on this thing. I prefer a controller for gaming but that's because I grew up with controllers.

Performance is subjective with some players using standard keyboards with great success and others prefer mechanical because of things like polling rate and rollover, the advantages come with the reliability of your build, a standard keyboard usually fails after a year of heavy use in my experience but if you're good with a cheap one then really not needed unless you like a backlit keyboard because you type in the dark like me and want a better typing experience.

I don't like razer either.

[Arya]

Publicado originalmente por oobymach:

+1 for corsair, I've got 2 K70's now, one red led one rgb both with cherry red switches and I can't recommend them enough, bought both refurbished from newegg and never had an issue with either typing or gaming (except that the layout spacing takes some getting used to if you're coming from say a tight packed microsoft keyboard). Build quality is solid and durable, imo best bang for your buck especially refurbished.

I hear the cherry red speed version isn't great/fails from use but none of my keys are loose or broken and I've been heavily typing/occasional gaming close to 2 years on this thing. I prefer a controller for gaming but that's because I grew up with controllers.

I don't like razer either.

Sad thing is, Corsair used to be great. Which may be why yours are performing so well - maybe they were built before their build quality went downhill? I had a K60 for years and loved it to bits. Literally. I was shocked when I bought my K70 and then had it literally fall apart in months.

[oobymach]

I can't imagine this falling apart and I'm a heavy typer (I bottom out the keys every time) which is why I use them, I've killed a few keyboards with my typing skills :P manufacturers are always looking to save money on production though so they may have switched to a different key manufacturer assuming they were getting the same quality?

Is it possible you got a chinese clone board? I've seen good clones before, with things like gundams for instance the real japanese ones come from bandai and the chinese clone is daiban with the model and logo being nearly identical to the real thing, and they clone everything not just model kits, I wouldn't be surprised if corsair switched for some cheaper clone parts like keys or switches.

[Arya]

Publicado originalmente por oobymach:

Is it possible you got a chinese clone board? I've seen good clones before, with things like gundams for instance the real japanese ones come from bandai and the chinese clone is daiban with the model and logo being nearly identical to the real thing, and they clone everything not just model kits, I wouldn't be surprised if corsair switched for some cheaper clone parts like keys or switches.

I can absolutely confirm it was a Corsair product. It had all the documentation to prove it, there was nothing suspect about it, no changed names or odd/missing stickers. And I bought it from the biggest gaming department store in the city. It also shipped with and worked with Corsair's Utility Engine software.

The keycaps were a bad joke. They were an extremely cheap and nasty transparent plastic, with the black being spraypainted on with what looked like rattlecan paint. But that wasn't the only problem, the board also had problems with it's RGB LED lighting - it never worked properly. Some keys were brighter than others, others were dimmer than most.

Although it was an internal electrical fault that eventually killed it. The board just bricked itself one morning and wouldn't turn on.

[ugafan]

Publicado originalmente por Wolfıe:

there was nothing suspect about it

They were an extremely cheap and nasty transparent plastic, with the black being spray painted on with what looked like rattlecan paint.

Some keys were brighter than others, others were dimmer than most.

ummm...

[Arya]

Publicado originalmente por ugafan:

ummm...

A simple way of answering this would be to find a working K70 and compare the carcass of mine(which I still have) against it. And I'm well able to do that, a friend of mine has a K70 Rapidfire as well.

[ugafan]

pretty much everything you described about the board makes it sound suspect. was the chassis plastic or brushed aluminum?

[Mossy Snake]

Personally I'm not so sure, but it depends on the switches.

I prefer membrane over some mechanical keyboards I've used, but I love some others I've tested. Be sure that you know what you want, as some keys differ heavily from others.

[Arya]

Publicado originalmente por ugafan:

pretty much everything you described about the board makes it sound suspect. was the chassis plastic or brushed aluminum?

Brushed Anodized aluminium, laser-cut with a C&C machine.

[ugafan]

well that's good at least. mine has the blue switches and the keys and lighting are nothing like what you described.