Best Gaming Keyboards Under $100, Wireless and Full Size
Magnetic switches now cost under $100, which makes $200 keyboards hard to justify. What switch type, size and wireless change for the money.
Corsair’s K70 PRO TKL in white, at $99.99 on Corsair’s own store, is the gaming keyboard we would buy. It has magnetic Hall effect switches with rapid trigger, actuation you can set anywhere from 0.1mm to 4mm, and 8,000Hz polling, on a body with no number pad to get in the way of your mouse. Corsair shows it down from $169.99, and the black one is $139.99, so the colour alone is worth $40. Corsair K70 PRO TKL on Amazon
Going wireless, take the Logitech G515 LIGHTSPEED TKL at $109.99. Playing nothing competitive, the $79.99 Corsair K70 CORE does the job.
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What you play picks the switch
Magnetic switches only earn their money in fast shooters. A magnet and a sensor read how far each key has moved, so the key can fire at a depth you choose and reset the moment it starts to rise. Corsair calls that rapid trigger, like everyone else, and Logitech sells it directly on “counter-strafing”, the Counter-Strike and Valorant habit of tapping the opposite key to stop dead. Play those and magnetic is what to buy.
Prices are the reason to stop there. Magnetic keyboards on the makers’ stores start with Corsair’s Clipper Pro Mini 60 at $89.99 and the K70 PRO TKL at $99.99, then Razer’s Huntsman V3 HE Magnetic 8KHz from $119.99, Logitech’s G515 RAPID TKL at $149.99 and its PRO X TKL RAPID at $159.99. SteelSeries wants $228.99 for the Apex Pro Gen 3. That one is poor value: the adjustment range is the same 0.1mm to 4mm as the $99.99 Corsair, and the extra $129 buys a small OLED screen.
RPGs, strategy games and anything you also type on want an ordinary mechanical switch, which is cheaper. The Corsair K70 CORE at $79.99 (down from $99.99) has MLX Red linear switches and two layers of sound-dampening foam, at full size. Linear means no bump and no click, the usual choice for games. Corsair K70 CORE on Amazon
Membrane is the budget floor. The Corsair K55 CORE TKL at $34.99 is quiet, spill-resistant and polls at 1,000Hz, and it costs less than most mice. Keep that money if your computer is the bigger worry, and put it toward a cheap gaming laptop that can run the games. SteelSeries’s Apex 3 is $54.99, for the same kind of switch with an IP32 water and dust rating. Corsair K55 CORE TKL on Amazon
Two middle options do not add up. SteelSeries’s Apex 5 mixes a membrane with a mechanical click at $99.99, which is the price of the magnetic Corsair. Razer’s BlackWidow V4 X is an ordinary mechanical board at $129.99, $50 more than the K70 CORE.
Wired or wireless
On one keyboard, Logitech has made this easy. The wired G515 TKL and the wireless G515 LIGHTSPEED TKL are both $109.99, the wireless one down from $159.99. So the wired one makes no sense while that holds. The LIGHTSPEED connects by its own dongle, by Bluetooth or by cable, with low-profile switches in tactile or linear that fire at 1.3mm. Logitech G515 LIGHTSPEED TKL on Amazon
Elsewhere wireless costs real money. Corsair’s K70 CORE TKL is $89.99 with a cable and $149.99 without, so $60 for the wireless version. Wireless boards at this money also poll more slowly: the K70 CORE TKL WIRELESS and the Keychron below run at 1,000Hz, where the wired magnetic boards here reach 8,000Hz. Corsair’s K65 PLUS Wireless at $119.99 in Atomic Purple is a better deal than the K70 if you are happy at 75% size.
Wireless and magnetic together is what the Keychron K2 HE offers at $129.99: Gateron magnetic switches you can swap yourself, on a 75% layout, over 2.4GHz, Bluetooth to three devices or a cable. Keychron’s own gaming brand, Lemokey, sells the P1 HE with the same switch and wireless options at $169.99, and we would keep that $40. Keychron K2 HE on Amazon
ASUS’s ROG Azoth, wireless with a small OLED screen, is $249.99 on its US store, and the Azoth Extreme is $499.99. Both are for people buying a keyboard as an object. If you are mostly on a sofa with a wireless board, a lap desk with room for keyboard and mouse will change more than any of these upgrades.
How small you can live with
Every size down moves the mouse closer and takes away keys. Most people should stop at tenkeyless, which drops only the number pad, and the rest of this comes down to which keys you can do without.
Full size keeps the number pad, which spreadsheets and some MMO players want. The K70 CORE covers that at $79.99. Corsair’s VANGUARD PRO 96 at $179.99 is the magnetic route with a number pad squeezed in, so buy it if you need both. Corsair VANGUARD PRO 96 on Amazon
A 75% layout, like the K2 HE or K65 PLUS Wireless, keeps the function row and arrow keys in a tighter block.
A 65% layout loses the function row and keeps the arrows. Corsair’s K65 PRO MINI is half price at $74.99, down from $149.99, with OPX optical switches and a cable. For a small desk it is the bargain on Corsair’s whole list, though it has no rapid trigger. Corsair K65 PRO MINI on Amazon
A 60% layout loses the arrows as well, so they sit behind a function key. That suits a shooter and annoys you the moment you edit text. The Corsair Clipper Pro Mini 60 at $89.99 is magnetic with 8,000Hz polling, and is the cheapest route to rapid trigger of any keyboard we found on these stores. Corsair Clipper Pro Mini 60 on Amazon
Corsair’s two big cuts are sale prices, and the K70 PRO TKL’s $99.99 applies to the white one only. If that sale ends, the Razer at $119.99 is where we would go next. Razer Huntsman V3 HE on Amazon
