Corsair K95 RGB Platinum Gaming Keyboard Review

As one of the most expensive gaming keyboards on the market, the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum needs to deliver a great experience to justify its price tag. And this keyboard does indeed deliver in regards to build quality, features, and software. If you are looking for a high-performing gaming keyboard, this one will probably suit your needs, but you can also find a cheaper one that will probably suit your needs just as well.

Although it is only cosmetic, the RGB lighting is one of the key selling points of the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum. All 110 keys are backlit with fully customizable RGB LED lights. You can use Corsair’s iCUE software to customize it with various lighting effects and even sync the lighting with other Corsair products and peripherals.

The iCUE software also allows you to assign macros to your keys very easily. Of course, you can make a macro using any of your keys, but as an added bonus this board comes with six keys labeled G1-G6 arranged on the left of the board. These keys are unbound by default, ready for users to assign macro actions to them. The extra keys could come in handy for anyone who frequently uses keyboard macros.

There is 8MB of profile storage included on the board. So if you are taking your keyboard on the go to a tournament or between work and home, it will be able to remember all your macro and lighting settings across multiple devices. 8MB is enough space to store several different custom profiles.

This keyboard comes with some great extra features. There is a dedicated Windows key lock button, media controls, and even a USB passthrough on the back. Of these three features, the USB passthrough is the most important to gamers. For those who play on a wired mouse, attaching your mouse through your keyboard is far preferable to managing the mouse wire back to your PC, since it helps avoid snags in the mouse cable that can negatively affect in-game performance.

This keyboard comes with a detachable wrist rest. The wrist rest is a nice inclusion and goes a long way toward making this keyboard comfortable to use for extended periods of time.

Cleary, this board has a lot going for it. However, not everything is roses with this keyboard. The build quality for the frame of this board is made of Aluminum, and it is clearly solid and durable. However, for those who bottom out their keys when they type, there is a bit of flex to the board. The flex isn’t huge or overly noticeable, but it is something to keep in mind.

The included keycaps are made of PBT, which is a pretty decent material for caps in this class of keyboard. However, these caps are reasonably thin, and as a result, they can lose their grippy texture over time. They will still be more durable than some of the ABS caps featured in other gaming boards, but for $200 I would like to see some more durable caps included on the board.

The switches are also cheap considering the board’s price tag. The Corsair K95 can be outfitted with either Cherry MX Brown or Cherry MX Speed switches, neither of which are considered top of the line. Making matters more frustrating, once the switches are in, as with most gaming keyboards, they are not hot-swappable, so you are stuck with whatever you choose. This was a missed opportunity to give a higher value product by making all the switches hot-swappable.

To be fair, the Cherry MX switches aren’t the worst on the market, but they are generally considered to be low or mid-tier at this point ever since MX’s patent on MX style switches expired. The switches work fine for gaming, but it would have been nice to see some higher-quality switches from a company like Gateron or Kailh.

A final minor drawback that is worth noting is that this board requires two USB plugs to operate. With the USB passthrough, you end up having access to the same number of total USB slots, but the need for two USB plugs is still a limitation that should be mentioned. Was there really no way for them to implement this board with a single USB?

The K95 RGB Platinum keyboard is a durable aluminum board with plenty of gaming-specific features and affordances. If you like all the bells and whistles on your gaming keyboard, this keyboard might be worth its $200 price. If you are looking for a more standard gaming keyboard or are on a tight budget, there are a number of more affordable options that will work pretty much just as well as the K95.