Recommendation for Gaming mechanical keyboards <$80?

Hi guys,

recently, I've been looking for a good gaming keyboard since gaming on the P150EM keyboard is somewhat uncomfortable for me after a long session, so I've set out on a quest to look for a good, dedicated external keyboard. However, I'm on a rather tight budget of $80, so a lot of good quality mechanical keyboards are out of the picture. I'd sacrifice backlighting, numpad, and a lot of special features if I can get a good, reliable quality board with cherry mx blues. So far, I've either settled on the CMStorm Quickfire Rapid MX Blues for $78 on Amazon, or the Razer Blackwidow Tournament Edition for $75 on Amazon

At the moment, I'm sort of torn between the two, although I'm learning towards the QFR over the Blackwidow, or perhaps there are better suggestions that you guys could give me.

Thanks

 

The QFR is better built than the black widows (I own a black widow stealth and a quickfire), the quickfire is a bit overbranded, but it is sturdy. There are other TKL keyboards if you want something small like duckys, filcos, etc, I'm pretty sure CM Storm also has full size keyboards in your price, no backlight.

Check the sidewinder X4 too, not a mech, but it's a very good keyboard and it's not too expensive either.

 

Not sure if you're aware, but never buy blues if you're a competitive FPS gamer. It requires you to travel a certain distance to activate the switch and when you're strafing you'll have a hard time with this. Hard to explain what I mean but you'll know when you get one.

 

I play FPS heavily, bf3, crysis, cod, all of that stuff...I had a black widow and I kinda regret it for FPS games. They require a LOT of motion to press one key making it kinda hard to walk around with ease, I would say get something like a razer lycosa, muy beuno for fps plus the clicking noise, it's great when typing, but for FPS... holy hell I wanted to wear noise cancelling headphones

 

Well I mainly play SC2, not fps very often. I've already settled on the blues, since I found a great deal for QFTK Blues for only $66. I'll find out exactly how great I find them as it arrives in a day or two.

 

I have a friend who swears by them for coding, tried them for gaming and didn't like them. Browns, blacks and reds are ok for gaming in my opinion, but the tactile bump of the blues can get in the way sometimes.

 

I originally had the black widow but heard it had terrible build quality (breaks after a month, paint comes off from wear and tear) and decided to return it.

I ended up with the Quick Fire Pro from CMStorm with red switches and I highly recommend it! It's built very sturdy and also it comes in matte black (gloss made the black widow seem like it was dirty with all the finger prints).

The only thing I don't very like about the QFP is that the height of the keyboard increased a lot (coming from logitech illuminated keyboard) and I had to get a new chair that was a bit higher as well.

Also only about half the keys are lit which looks extremely weird, so i just have WASD lit now.

 

God no. No. No. No. No. And no. It's garbage. Rather stick with the free one you get from Dell. Its actually -- better. O_O

 

My general advice for anyone looking at mechanical keyboards on a budget:

1) Take a look at this guide (on Page 3). It summarizes the different Cherry MX keyboard switch colors (and their ideal use cases) very well:
Rosewill Second Generation Mechanical Keyboard Review: RK-9000, RK-9000BR, RK-9000BL, RK-9000RE | PC Perspective - Page 3

2) Always consider the Rosewill 9000 series of keyboards (NewEgg's house brand). Various Cherry MX switch colors available, and costs around $80.

 

This and your recent post on "best gaming headset" get my vote.

Keyboards are of more interest to me, especially small-ish mechanical ones, but very very nice on both posts.

+1 rep

 

Speaking of my KBC Poker X with MX red is by far my favorite keyboard. I use it daily at work as my main keyboard ^^

KBC Poker Mod - PBT Keycaps & O-Ring Mod Thoughts & Opinions - YouTube

I like reds best for both gaming & typing, but not until I shortened the key throw w/ o-rings did they really shine for me.

Out of the box browns and blues were better. But blue is only typing I don't care to use them for gaming at all. Despite the feedback I type better and with less fatigue on the reds though.

 

Interesting project and interesting ref. I looked up kbc poker, in computers on Amazon, just to see what came up, but the price spread was very wide. What does kbc stand for?

After reading the ref given by kent1146, that was my thought. Namely buy either a blue or brown or even both.

Newegg has the Cooler Master Storm QuickFire Rapid (brown w/ smaller KB (no num pad)) on sale at $80 and I ordered one today. It also has a $20 rebate, but those are almost always not worth spending time on.

In fact all 10 Cooler Master keyboards (red/black/blue/brown) are different versions of the Storm QuickFire Rapid w/ normal price ranging from $80 to $120.

Am I correct in thinking that the Cooler Master keyboards are the same unit as the Rosewill units?

If I kinda like the brown, I'll keep an eye out for Newegg to put the Rosewill blue on sale as they're slightly lower priced than the Cooler Master.

 

I have a Rosewill w/ MX Brown and it's a darn nice keyboard. I picked it up for about $65. I bought it mainly for typing/coding and that it does. While it may look plain it does wonders for games (simultaneous keypresses, clear feedback). I love it, but everyone else in the room complains of the noise.

 

I got my CM Storm QuickFire Rapid w/ MX Brown yesterday; turns out that it is the slightly wider (18" vs. 14") one w/ arrow keys and a num pad. I thought it was the small(er) one; oh well.

It appears to still be on sale today (last day) at: Cooler Master CM Storm Quick Fire Pro SGK-4010-GKCM1-US Mechanical Keyboard with CHERRY MX Brown Switch - Newegg.com

It reminds me of the IBM keyboards of the '80s (the best key action!) w/ regard to the noise it makes.