Corsair K70 MKII SE, Mini review!

[typo]

Okay, this is not one of my inflammatory posts! Mini review of the Corsair K70 MKII SE follows:
I apologize for my haphazard writing technique. This was in no way meant to be formal.

I have had many,many nice keyboards. I would normally consider Corsair consumer gaming "junk". I was offered this board below wholesale. I bit. boy was i surprised! the first thing that blew me away was the switches. IMO, The cherry MX speed silver are almost a dead ringer for Topre 45G! The next thing is interesting in two ways. the keycaps are beyond superb, so long as you like white color. They average 2.35+/-MM thick! yet this is the brightest keyboard I have ever seen! So, Obviously they have grossly overdriven the forward voltage to the LED's. which means the backlighting should last about a year. i have remedied this by dimming it way down during night and off during the day. The actual top of the board is aluminum and this is also the plate. this is interesting because there is almost no under glow which plagues most backlit boards. It is also very solid and does not twist. the bottom of the case is okay ABS but does not really matter. It is better than topre at least.

The switches are of the above the plate type. I normally do not like that, but it seems to work out good here for whatever reason. The LED's are integrated in the switch type which are the best kind IMO. The board is simple and would be easy to repair. however they have purposefully made it pretty difficult to take apart. If you are skilled it is not an issue. I certainly would not change the keycaps. You may like some better. However amazingly I would put these way above GMK IMO. Which in itself is rather amazing to me. The set is sold separately as well with many extra keys for about $50. There is little to no wobble. The genuine Cherry stabilizers work very well here too. There are limited discreet media keys. This would look fine in a Business environment IMO. 

It is a full-size board but it is more "compact" than most. It is smaller than a 65% plus a numpad. This is not a niche board the likes of a Rama. I will go out on a limb here and say something like a Rama is just different not nesscessarily "better". I guess if I were to sum this up I would liken it to a very deluxe version of a Cherry keyboard.  Overall for the retail price on Amazon of $139.00 I think this is a real winner. As of now, amazingly enough I plan for this to be my daily driver for a while. How long I really could not say at this point. I am honestly that impressed with it. I am sure others have\had it and may say it is not that great so YMMV.

Having had\own hundreds of very high end keyboards I feel I can speak with authority on the subject. A lot is personal preference and what "fits" you of course. I was very pleasantly surprised by this. Especially having paid almost nothing for it new(I have contacts). To say the least, this is a vast departure from Corsairs usual offerings IMO. One thing I forgot to mention is that the keycaps are PBT as well. You are getting a lot of keyboard here for not a lot of money any way you cut it IMO. If any of you keep track of my posts, you know I am the first to say when i feel that something is junk.

There seems to perhaps only be one slight issue with this board but it very well may just be myself. Often when i intend a capital "I" I get lowercase. However these are very light switches and I am a very light touch typist. It is odd that it only occurs with "I" however though. Actually it is in fact myself. I just typed the letter here 5 times now and hit it all 5 times because I hit it harder(now 6 times)
It was indeed myself.

I can certainly add a picture, but it is not like there are not 10 million pictures of it allover the internet. I figured walie would say i do not have it however he has been much nicer to me as of late and I appreciate that walie.

[el_murdoque]

I must say the biggest disappointment about this keyboard is finding out that the keycaps seem to be decent.
Those are, to my eye, even uglier than those on the old Razer keyboards. I've never liked those cyborg-style-gaming fonts.
What I just learned is that I like them a LOT less when they are backlit with white keycaps.


Apart from that, It seems hard to believe to hear such praise coming from someone who has had hundreds of high end keyboards, many of which were one of a kind.
I thought that someone who got used to the tight yet smooth action of a lubed high end mx-style switch set into a expensive metal case and capped with GMKs of the highest quality would
hold an opinion that is a lot lower on a cheap Chinese board with standard Cherry MX switches.
 

[typo]

Not, really LOL. If you knew what i paid i was kind of impressed HAHA! You must also take "price" into consideration here. the thing is already filthy though. Knock off a star.

[el_murdoque]

Okay, I guess that when you take price in consideration, it is a big winner.

At least against a one-off die cast titanium frame capped with a one off run of GMK keycaps that should cost roughly a hundred times of what you paid for the Corsair.
I guess the frame does not bend too easily and the caps won't wiggle too much.
After all it IS considered a quality product with Joe Average, who thinks that holy pandas are religious bears.

Why have you chosen such an oddball product?

[Maledicted]

I don't like the aesthetics of the MKII. What about it is a departure from their previous products? They made the logo uglier (at least it is better than the stupid "Corsair gaming" logo they had until people ridiculed it out of existence), changed the configuration of the extra buttons, and added their double shot caps as standard?

I do know that Aliexpress has some Corsair-compatible double shots for like $25-30 each. Maybe the legends are better. I'll find out, I have 3 sets ordered.

Corsair has always made great keyboards, at least the aluminum plate ones. The downsides have always just been caps (and compatibility of caps), and disassembly/reassembly.

Those aluminum plates do attract dust like nothing else, but that's another pro for the exposed plates like that. They're really easy to clean with just a brush. Without an exposed plate, you're going to have to take the board apart.

[Polymer]

Silvers are linear so what do you mean they feel like 45g Topre which definitely are not linear?

Not that I don't understand where you're coming from...MX Silents to me can have a slight Topre feel to them as far as sound and roughly the same force needed to use them....and certain parts of pressing the key reminds me of Topre...except there isn't a collapse of a dome...Switching back and forth it is obvious it isn't Topre..

[typo]

You are all going to lose faith in me once again....or perhaps realize I came to my senses. Put simply this thing is no MKB DUH. In fact it is an absolute piece of trash! The DS keycaps are decent save for the font but I would vastly prefer a darker color. That is about where it ends. I do not even like the Silvers. Although I guess Reds are okay. I am just going to build another custom Topre RGB. However this time I am not going to be so hasty and hopefully spend much less money. The issue is there is even variance in tolerance from board to board if you want a perfect fit. So my case is not reusable unfortunately. I figure if money is no object I should get it exactly perfect.

I could get an MKB or OTD but I want TOPRE 45G switches with RGB. This time I will also pull all the through hole LED's and put SMD. That alone will be complete reengineering of the PCB. I will have to re-etch it. It is a good thing I am retired and was an Engineer to boot. I figure I should just get what I really want. i am not returning the Corsair because i would be ashamed. It was a special favor. I mean I paid almost nothing for it. That is really why I oozed over it. For $179 or even $139 I would not touch this thing. You are getting close to a good board at that point.

Well, maybe I would just settle for Reds if a MKB was much less money. which it probably is. I am sure my new Topre project runs me at least 5 grand. the last one was the price of a new small car. I could always just start repairing that one too. that would be much cheaper. I just want to switch it to all SMD. That would only cost like $400. no big deal at all to me at this point. I am too old and in too poor health to do the work myself any more but I have resources luckily.

Anyways for street price I would not touch the K70 SE with a 10 foot pole. Yeah I did a 360 but you all already knew this. At least I hope I just saved someone the disaster of purchasing one based on my stupid "review". Not that you can't trust me. I was honestly impressed, getting it almost free. For $139 I highly suggest you spend the other $100 and get a real keyboard. Many to choose from then. Even for $139 I would get a Ducky or Leopold. Or actually this IKBC seems very promising. I mean as far as RGB Cherry boards go. If you do not require backlit, you can do even better. I apologize if anyone feels I was misleading. I was being honest at the time. I was the one that was misled. The thing honestly sucks in retrospect. So much i actually wish i had paid the $139 so i could return it. just to get back the few bucks i paid. I paid more than "a few bucks" but not much. Luckily. I guess I can trade it for an Aviator cable when no one is looking.

[Maledicted]

You are all going to lose faith in me once again....or perhaps realize I came to my senses. Put simply this thing is no MKB DUH. In fact it is an absolute piece of trash! The DS keycaps are decent save for the font but I would vastly prefer a darker color. That is about where it ends. I do not even like the Silvers. Although I guess Reds are okay. I am just going to build another custom Topre RGB. However this time I am not going to be so hasty and hopefully spend much less money. The issue is there is even variance in tolerance from board to board if you want a perfect fit. So my case is not reusable unfortunately. I figure if money is no object I should get it exactly perfect.

I could get an MKB or OTD but I want TOPRE 45G switches with RGB. This time I will also pull all the through hole LED's and put SMD. That alone will be complete reengineering of the PCB. I will have to re-etch it. It is a good thing I am retired and was an Engineer to boot. I figure I should just get what I really want. i am not returning the Corsair because i would be ashamed. It was a special favor. I mean I paid almost nothing for it. That is really why I oozed over it. For $179 or even $139 I would not touch this thing. You are getting close to a good board at that point.

Well, maybe I would just settle for Reds if a MKB was much less money. which it probably is. I am sure my new Topre project runs me at least 5 grand. the last one was the price of a new small car. I could always just start repairing that one too. that would be much cheaper. I just want to switch it to all SMD. That would only cost like $400. no big deal at all to me at this point. I am too old and in too poor health to do the work myself any more but I have resources luckily.

Anyways for street price I would not touch the K70 SE with a 10 foot pole. Yeah I did a 360 but you all already knew this. At least I hope I just saved someone the disaster of purchasing one based on my stupid "review". Not that you can't trust me. I was honestly impressed, getting it almost free. For $139 I highly suggest you spend the other $100 and get a real keyboard. Many to choose from then. Even for $139 I would get a Ducky or Leopold. Or actually this IKBC seems very promising. I mean as far as RGB Cherry boards go. If you do not require backlit, you can do even better. I apologize if anyone feels I was misleading. I was being honest at the time. I was the one that was misled. The thing honestly sucks in retrospect. So much i actually wish i had paid the $139 so i could return it. just to get back the few bucks i paid. I paid more than "a few bucks" but not much. Luckily. I guess I can trade it for an Aviator cable when no one is looking.

What is it that you now hate about it? How is the case not reusable? Why do you no longer like silvers? I have never tried them myself.

I put box navies in a K65, that worked out perfectly. I plan to but box navies and jades into many other K65s and K70s in the future. Just holding out to see how I like Cherry silent reds and the new Kailh box silent reds/pinks.

[mpro]

I found the OP's take on the K70 pretty interesting as the K70 was my very first board. I got the rapid fire version with silver switches and I have to say I still enjoy it for gaming although for just day to day typing it's far from the most premium experience. That being said gaming keyboards ability to lock windows key, media controls etc are something I do miss on more enthusiast level stuff.

[typo]

Mal' I meant I cannot reuse the TOPRE RGB custom Titanium case of mine  with another TOPRE RGB and expect a 100% gapless fit. I am that anal. $$$$ worth to be exact I was not speaking of the K70. I really like the "top" plate on the K70. The Silvers are too sensitive. Reds are about very good. Lubed and O-ringed are outstanding. The silent are not better just quieter. Reds are not loud like blues anyways. The k70 is okay. It is just kind of light and "flimsy". It is a good board but no way is it a custom board. I think for the price, the new IKBC should hands down shatter the K70. I am using my custom TOPRE now and there is no comparison. The K70 keycaps are good and luckily they sell them separately cheap. I suppose a custom based K70 would be nice. Like a 20+ pound board. Silvers could not have actuation points but reds could. Still, There are now better MX switches than Cherry for enthusiasts.

[Maledicted]

I found the OP's take on the K70 pretty interesting as the K70 was my very first board. I got the rapid fire version with silver switches and I have to say I still enjoy it for gaming although for just day to day typing it's far from the most premium experience. That being said gaming keyboards ability to lock windows key, media controls etc are something I do miss on more enthusiast level stuff.

Personally, I still don't understand how people accidentally press the Windows key when gaming.

Mal' I meant I cannot reuse the TOPRE RGB custom Titanium case of mine  with another TOPRE RGB and expect a 100% gapless fit. I am that anal. $$$$ worth to be exact I was not speaking of the K70. I really like the "top" plate on the K70. The Silvers are too sensitive. Reds are about very good. Lubed and O-ringed are outstanding. The silent are not better just quieter. Reds are not loud like blues anyways. The k70 is okay. It is just kind of light and "flimsy". It is a good board but no way is it a custom board. I think for the price, the new IKBC should hands down shatter the K70. I am using my custom TOPRE now and there is no comparison. The K70 keycaps are good and luckily they sell them separately cheap. I suppose a custom based K70 would be nice. Like a 20+ pound board. Silvers could not have actuation points but reds could. Still, There are now better MX switches than Cherry for enthusiasts.

Could you maybe get a Norbauer case for it?

I consider reds to be too sensitive for regular typing too. I know I wouldn't want anything even more sensitive though. I like Kailh box reds quite a bit more than the standard Cherry ones, though I'm not sure whether or not I'll bother to put them into a board since I usually only use reds for gaming anyway. I have read that the silent reds are smoother, and somehow magically pleasant to type on. I have a switch tester that will hopefully come back out of the wormhole that is Chinese shipping ... in the coming months ... that has a silent red included, but I'm starting to be tempted to just get a board locally to try them. I have Kailh's new box silent red/pinks coming as well. I imagine if I did ever set up a board specifically with them, vs just using my old K70 with stock Cherries, I would probably put springs in them that fall somewhere between reds and blacks in weighting.

What is it that you find flimsy about a K70? Didn't you previously say that there was no flex at all? Maybe the newer ones are thinner or something, but the only keyboards that I have that I can definitively say are more sturdy than a K70 is my F77, and probably TG3 cop keyboards and BL82s. I have an F XT, Omnikey, Zenith Z-150, Zenith ZKB-2, Unitek K151L. They all have thick plastic upper cases and steel lower cases, but that steel is thin. You could say with any M or F, even with a plastic bottom case, will be very robust because of their thick plate sandwiches, but you can't say the same about their cases.

Do you mean an IKBC in particular? Most of the ones I have found look like thin plastic. I don't feel that custom necessarily means it is any more or less robust than a cheap board from China.

[el_murdoque]

Personally, I still don't understand how people accidentally press the Windows key when gaming.

Then I guess you've been around when those darn keys appeared. I remember, quite vividly, how some hard earned game progress was suddenly in jeopardy, because a slip of the thumb missed the alt key and pressed the windows logo instead.
What happened next was that either that windows menu came up and you were able to get back into the game (a rare thing),
or the game crashed and only ctrl+alt+del worked - or the whole thing would freeze up and only a hard reset did it.

I have no use for the win keys. Nor do I have use for the button that locks them. I never press them. Not even by accident. Years of training in my late teens stuck.

I guess that today, when you press that key during a game session, the result is no more than mildly annoying. It's not the sheer terror kids had to suffer back in the day. So you'll never work as hard to get good at not touching them. In that case that lock switch is a bit handy. 

[Maledicted]

Personally, I still don't understand how people accidentally press the Windows key when gaming.

Then I guess you've been around when those darn keys appeared. I remember, quite vividly, how some hard earned game progress was suddenly in jeopardy, because a slip of the thumb missed the alt key and pressed the windows logo instead.
What happened next was that either that windows menu came up and you were able to get back into the game (a rare thing),
or the game crashed and only ctrl+alt+del worked - or the whole thing would freeze up and only a hard reset did it.

I have no use for the win keys. Nor do I have use for the button that locks them. I never press them. Not even by accident. Years of training in my late teens stuck.

I guess that today, when you press that key during a game session, the result is no more than mildly annoying. It's not the sheer terror kids had to suffer back in the day. So you'll never work as hard to get good at not touching them. In that case that lock switch is a bit handy.

Actually, I didn't do a lot of PC gaming until maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I couldn't afford anything better than frankenrigs with mixmaster parts, so I stuck mostly to console gaming (although I would have always preferred PC). I did do a lot of ctrl + c and ctrl + v as a webmaster's assistant though, a lot of data entry for many, many product pages. What games even really use the alt key as something integral to the gameplay? When using the left hand to press it, but still keeping fingers on WASD, it seems unnatural to me to press the Windows key at all with the thumb.

[typo]

About 3 months ago I bought a machine with the top thread ripper and 3 of the top Nvidia's (the special ones). I don't even game! It was $27,000! Then i came to my senses and returned it LOL. I just wanted the top benchmark! I told you I am a nerd. Can't you just get a WKL?

I did not mean the K70 twists. I meant it is not a full aluminum case as some kids may be misled. The board really is okay for Best Buy. It is no Korean board though. What I like about it is the key count. A 104UB does not have all of those keys. Not that I ever use them.

[Maledicted]

About 3 months ago I bought a machine with the top thread ripper and 3 of the top Nvidia's (the special ones). I don't even game! It was $27,000! Then i came to my senses and returned it LOL. I just wanted the top benchmark! I told you I am a nerd. Can't you just get a WKL?

I did not mean the K70 twists. I meant it is not a full aluminum case as some kids may be misled. The board really is okay for Best Buy. It is no Korean board though. What I like about it is the key count. A 104UB does not have all of those keys. Not that I ever use them.

Why on earth would that cost $27,000? Was the case made of solid gold?

I don't know that I'll ever see a Korean board. I would certainly hope that they're well made. I know the old Fujitsu computers that were made in Japan are very nice.

[typo]

No Bro those components are huge money. go look up the prices. 3x 2080TI. AMD 3990X. All Water cooled.  15TB M.2 SSD. 40TB SSD. 256GB DDR 4. TOTL Asus Board. Pro Tools Audio Farm PCIE Board. ETC.... Luckily I returned it. Can you believe I have never even played 1 game? I am not even kidding. The thing sounded like a freight train too. Got highest benchmark, returned, LOL.

[typo]

Oh, Hooray! the keycaps are available in black! i ordered them a few days ago. will be here on 29th. these are honestly better than SP! YMMV!

[walie]

No Bro those components are huge money. go look up the prices. 3x 2080TI. AMD 3990X. All Water cooled.  15TB M.2 SSD. 40TB SSD. 256GB DDR 4. TOTL Asus Board. Pro Tools Audio Farm PCIE Board. ETC.... Luckily I returned it. Can you believe I have never even played 1 game? I am not even kidding. The thing sounded like a freight train too. Got highest benchmark, returned, LOL.

Nope.

[typo]

Nope to what? I do not get you walie. sometimes you are with me and others against?

[Maledicted]

Nope to what? I do not get you walie. sometimes you are with me and others against?

You do say a lot of things that are difficult to believe. Why on earth would anybody need all of that in one computer, just to spend the money? 3 2080TIs and a 3990X are the most believable part.

[typo]

I planned fully on returning it LOL.

[typo]

The IKBC turns out to not be so great either. someone coming from $1,000+ keyboards all the time is not going to be very impressed with ones that are well under $200 I suppose. I am not meaning to be a snob. it is just a fact. I mean if you always drove a Mercedes you would not be very impressed with a Hyundai rental. One could call that snobbery but it really is not. Everyone just has to get in where they fit in I guess. Honestly not much unlike the K70 the IKBC has it's own share of issues. A sub $200 keyboard simply is not going to strive for perfection. I am back to my custom Topre. I really do not know why I ever veered from it in the first place other than I was to lazy to repair it. Now that I have, once again it remains my end game. It is my grail and shall remain so. Luckily it is fully serviceable so It will last the rest of my life. IMO, nothing can touch a Topre to begin with and certainly not my one of a kind. You are comparing a $139,00 full retail board to one I put untold thousands into plus hundreds of hours of my own labor. This is just my own stupid fault. I exchanged the Corsair towards a Philips HUE lightbulb On the District managers day off. I actually paid less for it than the lightbulb! That just goes to show what it is really worth. He would not sell it below cost.

[walie]

I planned fully on returning it LOL.

Lets see the receipt

[Maledicted]

The IKBC turns out to not be so great either. someone coming from $1,000+ keyboards all the time is not going to be very impressed with ones that are well under $200 I suppose. I am not meaning to be a snob. it is just a fact. I mean if you always drove a Mercedes you would not be very impressed with a Hyundai rental. One could call that snobbery but it really is not. Everyone just has to get in where they fit in I guess. Honestly not much unlike the K70 the IKBC has it's own share of issues. A sub $200 keyboard simply is not going to strive for perfection. I am back to my custom Topre. I really do not know why I ever veered from it in the first place other than I was to lazy to repair it. Now that I have, once again it remains my end game. It is my grail and shall remain so. Luckily it is fully serviceable so It will last the rest of my life. IMO, nothing can touch a Topre to begin with and certainly not my one of a kind. You are comparing a $139,00 full retail board to one I put untold thousands into plus hundreds of hours of my own labor. This is just my own stupid fault. I exchanged the Corsair towards a Philips HUE lightbulb On the District managers day off. I actually paid less for it than the lightbulb! That just goes to show what it is really worth. He would not sell it below cost.

I know nothing of the new ones, and don't care to because of their aesthetics, but the old K65s and K70s are wonderful. My next nicest boards in terms of build quality after my new production F77, and an IBM 4704 keyboard beats just about anything else in that regard.