CORSAIR Gaming Red Keys Mechanical KB - Vengeance K65/K95 Guide

[windwithme]

Windwithme have shared two Cherry mechanical keyboards in 2008.
I am irrevocably committed to mechanical keyboard. I have been using Cherry G80-1865 for 6 years.
I am very satisfied with Cherry MX Brown Switchdurability and tactile bump.

Cherry MX Switch has Green, Brown, Black, White and Red, the most popular one.
One is Gaming gears become more popular, and the other is Red switch has more advantages.
Comparing to the keyboard market years ago, mechanical keyboard brands are more and more.
Price range is also enlarged due to competition, not only for high end market now.
For mechanical keyboard fans, more options are good.

This article is about USA CORSAIR two keyboards, different segment and size.
They are all Vengeance series, and both use Cherry MX Red Switch. Let?s start with Vengeance K65 package.

Back side has product features, hot keys and function keys.
Lower-left logo shows CORSAIR provides 2 years warranty.

Inside the box
Vengeance K65, manual, warranty card and 1.5M USB cable

Front View
Frameless design looks simple and easy to clean dust.
80%87 keys design will remove number keys on right hand side to make keyboard smaller.
N-key Rollovermakes sure every keystroke translates into accurate gameplay or even when multiple keys are pressed.
Gunmetal gray anodized aluminum chassis make professional-grade look and feel.
K65 focus on small PC or table size users.

Back View
4 corners all have soft pad to fix the keyboard on table.
There are 2 stands on upper side for users to adjust.
Detachable, braided cloth USB cable with cable management in the center. It is durable and easy to stow, plus the K65 has cable routing to keep the cable locked in.

Left side is USB cabling hole. Right side is BIOS Switch, 4 steps.
No. 1 is 1000Hz, 2 is 500Hz, 3 is 250Hz and 4 is 125Hz.
The response time is 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 ms.
You can adjust USB response time by different mainboards. Sometimes, this is important.

Side View
The dimension is 350 x 165 x 30 mm and weight is 900g.
The upper side is higher. If it is not enough, you can use stand to adjust it.

Right Side View
Lower right side has 4 grey direction keys.
Left side, AWSD grey keys are the same function for left handers.

Rightmost is Win Key and middle is 4 media keys.
It is play/pause, stop, next, forward, mute, and volume keys.
Black and Grey printings are laser etch. It enhances the font printing durability.

Test platform use Mini-iTX to fit K65 user environment.
MB is GIGABYTE H87N-WIFI. There are more and more ITX products in past couple years.
GIGABYTE also launched several ITX MB. This is more high-end version. It builds in Intel WiFi and BT4.0 PCIe card.
It is dual LAN design, both Atheros and Intel GbE LAN, for more networking applications.

 

[windwithme]

H87 chipset provides 4SATA3 ports, supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10.
Comparing to most H61 ITX for entry market, Haswell platform has more options.
H87N-WIFI is mid-end market in ITX pricing. The C/P value is good in both materials and specs.

Test Configuration
CPU: Intel Core i3-4130
MB: GIGABYTE H87N-WIFI
DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT DDR3 2400 8GX2
VGA: Intel HD Graphics 4400
HDD: Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD
POWER: ANTEC TRUEPOWER Classic 550W
Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
Keyboard: CORSAIR Vengeance K65 / Vengeance K95
OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit

CORSAIR Vengeance K65 feedback is clear.
The sound is not as loud as Green, but a little louder than Brown.
The life cycle is 50 million clicks, that?s the main reason I change to Cherry MX Brown..
K65 is design and quality is good. Cherry MX Red is durable, tactile feedback and less fatigue.

Vengeance K65 design is frameless, compact, easy to carry and removable USB cable.
It is suitable for small table space or small PC users, like MATX or Mini-ITX system.
If you need to carry your keyboard very often, the compact K65 and removable USB cable is very convenient.

The other model is CORSAIR most high-end Gaming keyboard, Vengeance K95.
It looks similar to previous Vengeance K90. It should be revision.
The dimension is 502 x 166mm and the weight is 1.34kg. It?s quite heavy when you hold it.
Center and right side is Black anodized brushed aluminum chassismakes better quality and looks.

K95 only this area keys are matted surface plastic.
G1~G18 are macro keys. Combining with M1~M3, you can have 54 customize definitions.
It is 100% anti-ghosting with full key rollover on USB. You can press 20 keys at the same time without ghosting. Every key has diode to avoid current reflux.

Center View
K95 bundle White LED. The light reflectsdirectly on black aluminum back board.
It is all Cherry MX Red Switch. The long pond is satellite switch.
K95 key is different material with K65, the touch feeling is softer.

Right-side View
Large size keyboard with number keys and more function keys on above side.

Key-by-key customizable backlighting, you can press any of M1~M3 for 3 seconds, then you can set the key lights.
MR combines with M1~M3, you can set up G1~G18 macro keys.

From leftmost is LED light switch, luminance button, Window key and lock key.
From right most is 6 multimedia keys, play/pause, stop, next, forward, mute and volume wheel.

Upper left is BIOS Switch, 4 steps. The response time is 1, 2, 4 and 8 ms.
Next is USB Port for USB drives and devices.
K65USB cable is very thick already. K95 is 3 times thicker than it.
There are 2 USB connectors. Normally, you just need to plug the major one.
If you plug USB devices in it, you may need to plug 2 connectors for more power.

 

[windwithme]

Back View
There are also 4 soft pads on corner to fix the keyboard on table.
There are 2 stands on upper side. Below is fixed holes for wrist rest.

Soft touch and detachable wrist rest enhance the comfort.
For hours use, you can relief the wrist fatigue.

K95 Side View after Installing Wrist Rest
For users have more table space, K95 design and quality can offer you a high standard experience.

CORSIR K95 Gaming Software
Playback Options

Delay Options

Advanced Options
You can find the latest CORSAIRK95 Firmware in official website. The latest is 1.3.

After taking out the key, you can see German Cherry MX Red Switch.
Above transparent dot is LED light.

Enable LED, it light White which really improve the quality and identification.

K95 design position is different with K65. It?s for heave gaming users.
If you don?t mind the space and play game hours, you need more function keys and comfortable feels.
Or you need good quality keyboard and larger size, K95 is an outstanding pick for you.

K95 still gets some room to improve. Like left side 18 macro keys can be separatedfor more efficient space use.
Above USB ports can upgrade to USB3.0 for faster speed.
Basically, K95 focus on Gaming, so the total score is very high.

There are 2 CORSAIRdifferent sizes Gaming Red Switch share.
They are both frameless and aluminumchassis. It is big different with my Cherry keyboards simple look.
Even though K65 and K95 are positioning for high-end market, comparing to same price segment products,
CORSAIR Vengeance look, materials, design and features are surely leading.

I really pay attention to keyboard, mouse, monitor and speakers.
These parts are not about performance but human touch.
It impacts personal feel, comfort and fatigue.
Of course Cherry MX Switch price is higher than most rubber dome keyboards.
If you consider the durability, and human fatigue, this is worth to invest.
Nowadays, many vendors use Cherry MX Switch. I believe users can easier to find your favorite one in your budget.

This review is also in my blog. WIND3C, any comments are welcome.

 

[On2wheels]

I've been using a K60 for over a year and I love the feel of the key switches but it's had a repeating keystroke problem since I bought it. I thought it was my OS but the problem did not appear when I tried my old membrane kb, but Corsair even had the 'repeating keystroke' option as a choice in the ticket creation page :/ I contacted Corsair support last week just to see what they say and to my surprise they issued me an RMA number and asked for it to be shipped back, so if there's any chance it gets repaired/replaced under warranty I'll be very happy.
That backlit K95 sure is nice.

 

[Desiato]

I've been using a K60 for over a year and I love the feel of the key switches but it's had a repeating keystroke problem since I bought it. I thought it was my OS but the problem did not appear when I tried my old membrane kb, but Corsair even had the 'repeating keystroke' option as a choice in the ticket creation page :/ I contacted Corsair support last week just to see what they say and to my surprise they issued me an RMA number and asked for it to be shipped back, so if there's any chance it gets repaired/replaced under warranty I'll be very happy.
That backlit K95 sure is nice.

I recall a lot of first gen users were impacted by this issue. I believe some resolved it with a firmware update. My K95 has not been impacted.

The only substantial complaint I have is about the keycaps. The paint rubs off very easily. Especially for a premium keyboard marketed to gamers. My top minor complaints are: it's a pain to disassemble for a keyboard, and its open nature means frequent cleaning is required; because of its open design, it is also more open to dust and debris.

With that said, I would definitely buy again.

 

[Evilyeti]

I recall a lot of first gen users were impacted by this issue. I believe some resolved it with a firmware update. My K95 has not been impacted.

The only substantial complaint I have is about the keycaps. The paint rubs off very easily. Especially for a premium keyboard marketed to gamers. My top minor complaints are: it's a pain to disassemble for a keyboard, and its open nature means frequent cleaning is required; because of its open design, it is also more open to dust and debris.

With that said, I would definitely buy again.

I have a Silver K90 and Black K70 and will agree that they are a pain to clean. I spent 4 hours on the weekend cleaning both keyboards.

I really like the K65 and have been tempted to buy one, however with the announcement of the K70 RGB I have been putting off grabbing a K65.

Really love the Corsair keyboards. Defiantly recommend them.

 

[On2wheels]

Corsair mistakenly sent my replacement warranty keyboard to the wrong address in the US. Their last reply today was to offer me a refund (or I assume wait another 3weeks for them to have stock again, I've already waited for them to restock). Why is it that NCIX or CanComp can have stock but the RMA office has none? I don't get that, they are the warranty supplier, yet they have no stock.

I'm actually torn in making this decision. The K60 was a solid built keyboard, and looked great, it just had that repeating keystroke issue that really isn't acceptable. I assume the K70 they were sending me had the bug worked out, but with incompetence like this I'm thinking of trying another brand. (they asked me twice to confirm my shipping address because I included a PO Box in my street address, when UPS cannot ship to PO Boxes).

Desiato, I did not know a keyboard can have it's firmware updated, but honestly I wouldn't expect to have to do that as the end user. Maybe I'll search here for a Razer review, or anything else that has been reccommended. This is a bit of a venting for me since my RMA claim was approved in late July.