A gold gaming keyboard can make the difference between a comfortable gaming marathon and one that leaves you with low scores, few kills, tired fingers and aching wrists. The best gaming keyboards, however, will help you play a bit faster, plus offer pretty lights and accessible media controls that can improve your overall game play experience when playing almost any game.
The best gaming keyboard adds more comfort, convenience and functionality to take your game to the … [+]
While you don’t need to buy a high-end gaming keyboard to have fun playing your favorite games, you owe it to yourself to invest in a keyboard that’s fun, easy, comfortable to use. Ideally, the best keyboard for gaming is one that reacts quickly to your keystrokes and that’s built specifically for your unique needs, with extra keys and functions to help support you in all your favorite games.
The best gaming keyboards can make typing and rapid key presses more accurate, plus provide you with the option of remapping keys and customizing the look of keys through replaceable keycaps and/or adjustable RGB lighting. Most gaming keyboards are also built to last much longer than traditional keyboards, especially when they’re used to play games.
Many specialty gaming keyboards have an optional and matching mouse available, but it’s sold separately. In many cases, the keyboard/mouse combo is designed to work together to enhance your overall gaming experience and improve your interaction speed with whatever game you’re playing.
This is particularly useful when playing multi-player games, where a fraction of a second could mean life or death for the character you’re controlling. It’s also ideal to use one app to control both your peripherals, especially if they both feature similar RGB lighting and sync options. Once you’re done here, check out the best gaming mice to find the perfect partner for your new keyboard.
Getting back to gaming keyboards, check out these 12 popular models that you can buy right now—whether you want something wired, wireless, budget friendly, customizable, or perhaps something that veers from the traditional keyboard design, but can still help improve your overall gaming experience and reaction time.
Amazon
In a sea of great looking, great playing, but often-generic gaming keyboards, the SteelSeries Apex Pro stands alone as the best overall gaming keyboard with unique features, a distinctive look, and some of the fastest switches ever made.
At the heart of the Apex Pro are SteelSeries’ Omnipoint switches, which were the first to offer an adjustable travel distance for every single key. This feature makes it possible to dynamically decide whether you want deep and deliberate keystrokes to register, or light and near-touch-sensitive taps for faster actuation. Based on your personal gaming style and preferences, this feature can make a huge difference in how you interact with your favorite games, or how it feels under your fingers when you simply type.
Do you often find yourself hitting certain keys too easily because of your unique typing style? You can tweak it so those particular keys are harder to press. You can make it so you’ll get real satisfaction from hitting the spacebar hard, but on a key-by-key basis, use a lighter touch to prevail elsewhere. Tweak individual key switches to respond faster (or slower) than traditional mechanical ones, making this arguably one of the most competition-friendly keyboards you can buy if you take your gaming seriously. Rated for up to 100 million keystrokes, an investment in this keyboard will likely pay off for many years to come.
On top of its super fast, durable and “next-generation” switch design, the Apex Pro features an OLED display for seeing real-time feedback related to the switches, your audio settings and your system performance while gaming. This setup makes it easier to adjust the customizable RGB lighting mid-game without alt-tabbing back to the desktop. The lighting is also per-key and fully adjustable, so you can turn your keyboard into a reactive flasher or a rainbow unicorn of color—it’s all literally at your fingertips.
Amazon
Designed to work with this SteelSeries Apex Pro keyboard is the SteelSeries Rival 600 Gaming Mouse (sold separately), but well worth the added investment.
Amazon
A ten-key-less (or TKL) keyboard looks just like a traditional QWERTY keyboard, but it lacks a 10-key numeric keypad on the right side. This type of keyboard takes up less room on a desk, for example, but if your favorite games require continuously pressing the numeric keys (or you need to crunch numbers when working with a spreadsheet or bookkeeping application), this probably is not the keyboard style for you.
However, if you want a compact gaming keyboard with all the bells and whistles of a full-size model, this Razer Huntsman Tournament Edition TKL is an excellent gaming keyboard for the job. It makes use of Razer’s own brand Linear Optical switches for near-instantaneous actuation, low travel distance and extensive durability.
As well as being exceptional at gaming, this keyboard is extremely portable. It’s not only far thinner than traditional gaming keyboards, but its detachable USB-C cable makes it easier to pack up and take with you—without any concern of cable damage during transit.
Like all of Razer’s excellent gaming keyboards, this Huntsman Tournament Edition TKL has full support for Razer’s proprietary Chroma RGB lighting system, with every key sporting its own customizable LED. The standard-bottom row PBT keycaps make it possible to replace any key with your own custom design, so you can make this board look and feel just how you want it—and change it up for each different game you play.
Logitech
Logitech produces some of the best gaming keyboards hands down, but where it really shines is with wireless gaming keyboards. The pinnacle of those is the Logitech G915 TKL Lightspeed. It leverages the latest generation of Logitech’s wireless connectivity to offer the kind of performance that was previously only possible on a wired keyboard.
Lightspeed connectivity offers 1ms responsiveness thanks to its proprietary wireless protocol, making the G915 Lightspeed not just competitive with wired keyboards, but one that can excel in some cases. The internal processing—combined with Logitech’s super fast, low-profile GL mechanical switches—improves your reaction speed in games whilst freeing you from the constraint of traditional wires.
Alongside the wireless USB receiver, you can also connect this board to Bluetooth devices, letting you type at full speed on your phone or game competitively on your tablet as if it were a laptop. Battery life is 40 hours at maximum brightness, but can go far longer if you don’t mind turning down the excellent per-key RGB lighting. It recharges in about three hours. With its TKL design, what this keyboard lacks is a numeric keypad, but this allows it to take up less desk space.
Best Buy
Gaming keyboards don’t just need to play well, but for many, they need to look good too. That’s where the Corsair K100 RGB really shines—quite literally. It not only has excellent industry standard switches and media controls, but it offers customizable RGB lighting that can be game-specific, or designed by you to match your gaming room’s unique vibe.
The Corsair K100 employs not just per-key RGB backlighting, but a 44-zone customizable RGB «light edge.» That is, this keyboard can light up the desk around it for more nuanced effects, going as far as relaying game information to you through its endlessly adjustable light show. To give you more intuitive control of your lighting, media and applications, the K100 employs a unique iCUE control wheel, giving you flexible control mechanisms that aren’t available on many other keyboards.
Alongside its unique look and design, the K100 employs optical mechanical switches and Corsair’s powerful Axon processor—with a 4,000Hz polling and key-scanning rate for faster inputs. This makes it a great keyboard for competitive gamers.
Everything on this keyboard is backed up by the excellent Corsair iCUE software, offering advanced and intuitive control over everything the K100 has to offer. You can also use it to manage other compatible iCUE devices, like Corsair gaming accessories and some motherboards, allowing you to monitor system component temperatures through your keyboard’s lighting. The perfect partner to the K100 keyboard is the Corsair Nightsword RGB Gaming Mouse, which is sold separately.
Amazon
Redragon might not be quite the household name of its competitors, but at under $40, you’ll find few keyboards that can measure up to its excellent K552 mechanical design. It features real mechanical switches, colorful backlighting, and a compact (ten-key-less) design that makes it ideal for most gamers.
Need a compact keyboard that offers better travel and responsiveness than your laptop’s built in option? It’s perfect. Need an affordable upgrade for a traditional membrane gaming keyboard that offers a tangible performance improvement? This is the keyboard for you.
Available in black or white, the Redragon K552’s backlighting supports six different colors and gives you two user defined modes overall, letting you tweak brightness and lighting effects, plus easily flip between them depending on your mood and preference. It has full n-key rollover support across all 87 keys, so there’s no chance of a press not registering, even if you’re sharing the keyboard during a hot seat retro game.
The Outemu switches are designed to mirror Cherry MX Red linear switches, offering a relatively quiet and fast operation with a 2mm travel and 45g actuation force. They’ve been tested to over 50 million keystrokes, so this is a budget-friendly gaming keyboard that will likely improve your overall gaming experience and productivity.
Amazon
Traditional keyboard designs have improved a lot over the years, but they’re still not entirely conducive to healthy hand, wrist and arm positioning. That’s where ergonomic keyboards come in. However, these often lack the advanced features of a gaming keyboard. For gamers who want a true ergonomic keyboard design, the Kinesis Edge is your answer.
This keyboard combines high-end Cherry MX mechanical switches with a split ergonomic keyboard that’s designed for the best of both worlds. The Kinesis Edge offers high-speed responsiveness for gaming, but truly versatile positioning so you can be as comfortable as possible.
The keyboard’s built-in lighting is top notch. There are tons of effects and near-infinite colors to pick from. Also solid are the media controls, and the backend software powering it all is intuitive. The switches aren’t exotic, but you can pick from the full complement of Cherry MX options—of which, there are many and their availability is plentiful—so there’s something for everyone.
The Kinesis Edge is a solid all aound gaming keyboard that offers more ergonomic comfort than anything else out there, making it great for gamers who suffer from RSI or carpal tunnel.
Amazon
This is a mechanical, 104-key, RGB illuminated keyboard designed for gamers on a budget. It comes with an attachable palm rest and includes dedicated multimedia keys that allow you to adjust the volume and mute options easily. Download the free Viper software to personalize the keyboard’s lighting options and key customizations.
With its aircraft-grade aluminum chassis, the Patriot Viper V65 utilizes kailh white box switches with N-key rollover that result in 100 percent anti-ghosting for each key. The keyboard itself has earned an IP56 rating as a result of each key’s crisp tactile clickiness and its overall resistance to dust and moisture. Each key is rated for 80 million keystrokes and has a total travel distance of 3.6mm, with an actuation point of 1.8mm. When it comes to affordability, as a novice- to mid-level gamer, you’ll probably get everything you want and need out of this keyboard.
Amazon
Gamers know that the Razer brand represents top-quality gaming equipment across the board, so it makes sense that the BlackWidow V3 Mini provides a truly awesome wireless mini keyboard at a fair (but rather hefty) price.
Without Function keys and a numeric keypad, this is a mini-size (65 percent form factor) mechanical keyboard with customizable RGB lighting. It does have arrow keys, however. When you order from Razer’s website, you’re able to customize the keyboard with Razer Green or Razer Yellow switches. While you can connect the BlackWidow V3 Mini to your computer via USB-C, it offers Bluetooth wireless connectivity that supports both Windows and MacOS.
The BlackWindow V3 Mini is ideal for more serious gamers who want ultra-fast response (even when used wirelessly), customizable keys, a smaller-size keyboard (to free up some desk space) and an overall comfortable typing experience.
Amazon
If you’re looking to change up the way you interact with your favorite games, the Razer Tartarus V2 is a one-handed keyboard with 32 programmable keys and visually stunning Chroma RGB lighting. The high-performance Mecha-membrane switches provide nice tactile feedback when you press each mechanical key.
The keyboard includes an eight-way, ergonomic thumb pad for natural movement control, and each key can be remapped and programmed to meet the needs of each unique gaming experience. The RGB backlit keys sync up with other Razer gaming hardware and Philips Hue smart lighting, for example, to provide an enhanced, visually immersive game play experience when it comes to lighting.
Amazon
If you’re a gamer who likes to pummel the keys during competitive and intense game play, you’re probably accustomed to the people around you complaining about the noise from your keyboard’s clicking, which might even seep through into your gaming headset (unless it offers noise cancellation). Well, without compromising your gaming experience or forcing you to spend a fortune, SteelSeries offers a quieter, non-mechanical keyboard option.
In addition to providing 10 zones of RGB illumination and a premium magnetic wrist rest (which is removable), this keyboard offers some of the best whisper quite gaming switches on the market. Oh, and the keyboard is water resistant too.
Amazon
Razer boasts that its Huntsman V2 optical gaming keyboard offers near-zero latency, along with all of the popular features that make for an all-around fantastic gaming keyboard. When purchasing this keyboard, you can choose between Razer’s famous linear or clicky switches, based on your preference.
What you can expect, however, are switches that are three times faster than mechanical switches (offering a 0.2 millisecond response time), as well as sound dampeners (within the linear optional switches) that provide a quieter typing and gaming experience and an 8,000Hz polling rate for lower input latency. From the clicky optional switches, you’ll experience snappier keystrokes that feel a bit lighter than traditional mechanical switches, but that also offer up to a 8,000Hz polling rate for lower input latency.
To help keep things even quieter when you’re gaming, this keyboard includes an internal layer of acoustical foam inside its casing that absorbs any pinging noises that sometimes occur when you bottom out your keys. Included with the keyboard are an ergonomic wrist rest, built-in multimedia keys (and a digital dial), and internal memory that’ll store up to five on-board memory profiles.
Amazon
Proving that great gaming keyboards from well-known companies don’t need to cost a fortune, Razer offers its spill-resistant Cynosa V2 gaming keyboard with RGB lighting (it can display 16.8 million colors), individually backlit keys, dedicated media keys and a plethora of other features packed into a wired gaming keyboard that offers all-around great gaming performance. Thanks to its durable construction, the keys support up to 80 million clicks, so you won’t need to replace the Cynosa V2 anytime soon.
Strictly speaking, the answer is no, you don’t “need” a mechanical keyboard. But if you don’t have one and you consider yourself to be a serious gamer, you’re missing out.
Traditional membrane keyboards are cheap, but inaccurate, spongy and quite slow when it comes to their reaction time. Mechanical keyboards, however, offer a notable advantage in responsiveness, durability and accuracy. This makes them better for touch typing and gaming.
Laptop-style scissor keys are an alternative option, and they often offer shorter travel distances which can improve actuation time, but it’s rare to find them used in the best gaming keyboards, since mechanical switches are far more durable and are higher quality.
As the mechanical switch market has broadened in the last decade, you can now find exceedingly affordable mechanical keyboards for under $50, making it even harder now to recommend a membrane keyboard for gaming—or for any other use for that matter.
The answer to this question is very much dependent on what type of gamer you are, but there are three major things to consider. Do you want a switch that is fast, tactile or «clicky»? If actuation time (speed) is all that matters, the latest optical switches from Razer and Corsair are among the best, though SteelSeries’ adjustable Omnipoint switches are really good too.
Tactile feedback is that little bump you get when you’re about to actuate the switch. It’s particularly good for typists and gamers who want to feel when the keypress is going to be registered by the keyboard. It often works with a lighter touch, which can improve both responsiveness and typing speed.
Switches that are marketed as «clicky» tend to be the noisiest and offer what some gamers consider a satisfying sound when pressed. It’s not for everyone, however. These keyboards can be particularly aggravating for those around you, especially if you’re engaged in an intense action game and continuously pressing the same keys repeatedly. If you play alone and enjoy a louder keyboard, however, then a clicky switch might be for you.
Traditionally, wired gaming keyboards offered better performance than their wireless counterparts—and you don’t have to worry about battery life. While that latter point still stands with contemporary gaming keyboards, wireless options have come a long way, making them easily comparable to the best wired counterparts. However, if you’re going wireless as a gamer, you need to focus on the communication speed between the keyboard and your computer.
Wireless keyboards give you a lot of unique advantages over their wired contemporaries, like portability and a tidier desk (with fewer or no wires). In short, you’re buying a wireless keyboard more for convenience and style than performance, but with many of the latest wireless options, you don’t necessarily have to compromise on either.
If you’re going with a wireless gaming keyboard, you might also opt for a wireless gaming mouse, although most gaming mice also come in a wired version as well for those serious gamers who don’t want any lag whatsoever caused by a slower or unstable wireless communication with their computer.
