Mechanical Keyboard for a Mac and PC Gamer

[ThereAreNoHeroes]

I've been browsing through GeekHack for the last couple days and I'm trying to narrow down my keyboard purchase. My main machine is a top of the line 2.93 GHz Intel i7 iMac. I spend a lot of time on both the Mac side (for creative work)  and the Windows side (for gaming - mostly RTS's and FPS's).

I had an aluminum chiclet style Apple keyboard up until a few days ago when it broke. So I'm in the market for a new keyboard and I've heard good things about mechanical keyboards for gaming (specifically keyboards that use Cherry MX Blues).

Here's my criteria:

-Mac and PC compatible (I don't specifically need Mac drivers, but I don't want it to ghost keys on the Mac side and work perfectly only on the PC side of my comp.)
-Full layout including numeric pad.
-USB
-Media keys would be nice for volume up/down, brightness control, etc.
-Bonus points if I can pick it up today either at Best Buy, Fry' s or the like. I live in Los Angeles.

Any recommendations you guys have would be incredibly helpful.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Have you listened to youtube videos of how blues sound?

[manfaux]

The BlackWidow Ultimate!

[kps]

Have you listened to youtube videos of how blues sound?

Delta, Chicago, or Cherry?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Gaming on a Mac?

[.XL]

The blues are okay, but I find them a bit annoying. If you want a keyboard that will do all of the above and be good for gaming, grab a Filco fullsized off Amazon. You can get it in 2 days if you have prime, or second day for $3.99 with prime.

I have a tenkeyless brown and it works great on both my mac and pc. Listen to some sounds of the blues on youtube before you decide it's what you want...the browns are much sexier imo.

Don't go with the Blackwidow - it's only 2KRO. Filco is 6KRO over usb and NKRO usb to ps2.

[pitashen]

Zowie

[NamelessPFG]

The DSI Modular Mac sounded like the ticket right up until you said "full-size". There are numpad modules, but that still doesn't change the fact that the Ins/Fwd Del/Home/End/Page Up/Page Down and arrow key clusters are rather scrunched up against the alphanumeric portion, and Home and End are actually Fn + Left Arrow and Fn + Right Arrow, respectively. There's also no gaps separating the function keys, which will screw you over if you're used to feeling around those gaps to find the keys without looking.

Aside from that, if the Matias Tactile Pro line isn't your cup of tea, it looks like you'll have to get used to having Cmd and Opt/Alt swapped. Sure, you could do so in System Preferences, but if you need to hold those keys down during a cold boot for whatever reason (say, selecting which OS to boot from)...

[Pylon]

Matias Tactile Pro perhaps? My local Micro Center carries it (albeit seriously upmarked)

[pitashen]

I would hit tactile pro 3 if they offer cherry keys and in black color.
DSI modular is a decent choice as I am using one as well as my daily board on my hackintosh, but don't pay more than 99bucks for it (thus get it on ebay instead).  The down side of DSI modular is that it sits a bit too high and it is almost certain that you will need a wrist pad.

Again, give Zowie CELERITAS a look.

[uff0]

Das Keyboard are coming out with a Mac version. It's available for pre-ordering I think. Their normal keyboards works just fine on Mac though, and are overall great keyboards. If only they would release a non-glossy version...

[sth]

Thing is... the DAS is ugly as HECK. I'd rather have a keyboard that is totally out of place with my Mac setup than one that tries to forge its own 'design' path. ****'s real tacky.