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Corsair Vengeance K70 RGB Keyboard


CORSAIR Technical Marketing
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What is the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB?

 

For those of you who don’t know, The Corsair Gaming K70 RGB is the next evolutionary addition to our line of 100% fully mechanical gaming keyboards. Featuring the world’s first German-engineered Cherry MX RGB key switches as part of a limited-time Corsair exclusive, the  K70 RGB allows for 16.8 million per-key color animated back-lighting by utilizing an on-board ARM processor and a powerful lighting controller that uses new software to display fully customizable lighting effects such as gradient and ripple patterns.  The software will also allow for powerful key sequencing actions across multiple modes and profiles in conjunction with the lighting. Furthermore, all standard keys on the K70 are remappable, replacing the need for dedicated macro keys. The K70 RGB also features all of the hallmark attributes of the original award-winning Vengeance K70 such as aircraft grade black anodized brush aluminum, 100% anti-ghosting technology with full 104-key rollover, dedicated media control keys, adjustable dimming, removable perforated wrist-rest and adjustable polling rate.

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Specifications:

  • 100% Cherry MX Red RGB mechanical key switches for ultimate performance
  • Multicolor per-key backlighting for virtually unlimited game customization
  • Display controller driven fast and fluid 16.8M multicolor animation
  • Aircraft-grade anodized brushed aluminum for superior rigidity
  • Entire keyboard is programmable to assign a macro to any key
  • 100% anti-ghosting with full 104-key rollover on USB
  • Onboard memory to take performance and lighting settings with you
  • 36KB of on-board memory to store performance and lighting settings use on other PCs
  • RGB LED backlighting with key-by-key programmability to light up individual keys
  • Aluminum unibody construction for increased strength, durability and rigidity
  • Six dedicated multimedia keys
  • Windows Lock key for uninterrupted game play

 

Cherry MX Key Switches – Current K70

Cherry MX switches are the most popular mechanical switches found on today’s keyboards, due in part to the brand’s industry-renowned variety of key choices (MX Red, MX Blue, MX Brown, etc.) to fit different preferences, as well as their durable design, proven with over 5 billion switches used in keybaords around the world. Made in Germany with precision engineering, Cherry MX switches can withstand over 50 million key presses. Each key switch is mounted directly onto a top metal (aluminum) plate that ensures structual rigidity, topped with a translucent ABS laser-etched keycap to enable backlighting. Backlighting on a Cherry MX switch is much sharper than that of  a membrane keyboard because each key is lit by an individual LED and not in an array. This means that if the user removes the keycap, he or she should see an LED directly under it that maximizes the lighting effect.

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To solve the single LED limitation and provide a keyboard that could meet everyone’s specific preferences for LED backlighting, Corsair approached Cherry, one of the world leaders in product innovation. They took our request and  by working together, the two companies designed an entirely new switch while retaining the definitive characteristics of a Cherry key switch. The requirements—the feel, reliability, and range of switches—could not be compromised. It was important that the characteristics of the switch did not change simply because of RGB. The RGB would have to be a feature on top of a switching retaining its Cherry identity. In order to meet these standards, Cherry made adjustments to how the LED lighting was mounted.

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Rather than adding the LED directly onto the key switch, Cherry used a precise, computer- calculated lens in place of where the LED used to be. The RGB LED would then be surface mounted (SMD-LED) directly onto the keyboard’s PCB. The two benefits of this new design were apparent:

1.)    RGB is now possible since the light emitted by the diode shines through the lens and emits a similar effect to the previous 3mm single-color LED model.

2.)    With the RGB LED directly mounted onto the PCB, reliability is also gained by reducing the chances of ESD (electric static discharge) occuring, the leading cause of LED failure on keyboards.

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All of the lighting in the key switches connects to a custom lighting controller and a powerful ARM processor to control both the lighting and the keyboard 104-key rollover matrix.

 

The Software - Corsair Utility Engine


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The K70 RGB keyboard will be the first Corsair peripheral to use the newly designed software, the Corsair Utility Engine. This software is our most powerful and versatile version yet with options to configure both the lighting portions of the keyboard as well as create powerful actions such as double macros, remappable key assignments, timer countdowns, dpi adjustments, and more.

Every standard key on the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB is configurable with both actions and lighting that work in conjunction.

This means that not only can users perform a combination of key sequence actions with the press of a button, but can also incorporate a lighting profile on the keyboard to reflect the actions being initiated.

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The software will also allow gamers to create multiple color profiles as well as different modes that will enable separate lighting and action configurations based on the game or application with an adjustable OSD (on-screen display).

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With RGB backlighting available on a per-key basis, the software allows each  K70 RGB to be customized in  myriad ways. Each key can be customized to display any of the 16.8 million colors available. This color option is hence referred to as “the background.” In the image above, for example, Corsair has set the most popular keys for FPS to red while all the other keys are teal. The background refers to the colors that will remain static on the keyboard much like back-lighting. As one of its many features, Corsair incorporated groups of keys into the software. It can often be a tedious and mundane task to assign the same color to all 104 keys individually. In lieu of that,  the new Corsair Gaming Software can create and assign groups of keys to one lighting preference or action in their entirety.

In the example above, we configured the group ALL to include all of the keys on the keyboard except for WASD keys, the Arrow Keys, and Keys one - six. The company then assigned the color “teal” to ALL, and then assigned Red to the other three groups of keys.

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There is no limit to the number of groups a user can create nor is there a limit to the color combinations . If our desire to set all 104 keys to a one unique color per individual key, they can do so without encountering any hardware restrictions.

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The options for customization are endless and only scratches the surface. There are many more options for the keyboard including advance macros, timer sequences, full keyboard remapping, and double macros that we will explore more in the future.

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