Normally I don’t write about PC gaming hardware but recently I’ve been hooked on the re-emergence of mechanical keyboards. So when I heard that Corsair was releasing a new Vengeance keyboard yesterday, I had to take a look. I’m glad I did.

The first thing you’ll notice is the high-end brushed aluminum finish and exposed keys. There’s no plastic shroud around the edges of the keys, providing somewhat of a naked view of the keys on the sides. The mechanical switches used are MX Cherry Red; whether or not you’ll like them is really up to personal preference.

The keyboard comes in two finishes, with two separate LED backlight options to match. The black keyboard features red LED lighting while the silver aluminum features blue LED lighting. Unfortunately there is no option for white LEDs with the black color. We might see another version of the black keyboard down the road with white LEDs but nothing is planned at this time.

The K70 however has a variety of LED options – allowing you to fully illuminate every key on the keyboard or just a select few. Most photos of the keyboard have shown only the WASD and numbers illuminated but every key can be selected to be illuminated. All led settings are configurable straight from the keyboard as well, no additional software is required.

Holding down the backlighting button, users can individually select the keys they want to be illuminated. You can have every other key lit, only the numbers key lit, or any combination of keys you can think of. Just clicking the button will cycle through the various modes – full illumination, selected illumination or no illumination.

In addition to customized lighting, the keyboard also features what is known as “reactive lighting.” This reactive lighting will individually turn on and off the LED of any keyboard button you press. While this won’t help you when you’re hunting-and-pecking for keys, it does add a nice “wow” factor to it.

Corsair has also provided players with optional contoured WASD and 1-6 keycaps which increase the curve at the outside of the keys. Whether or not you need or want to use the keys are all up to you.

To support older motherboards, the keyboard also supports different response rates via a hardware switch on the back-side of the keyboard.

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