A winning gaming rig is nothing without the things that drive it, surprisingly enough though, things like keyboards and mice tend to get forgotten about, or put to the back of the queue when people are putting a build together. There are several reasons for the decision, which are all valid, however, most people soon start to realise that they should have taken the whole controls thing a little more seriously.
You shall become well acquainted
You are going to be spending a lot of time with your keyboard and mouse, so you’d better make sure that you like them. It’s an odd relationship really, not like the rest of your setup that should only require the minimum of hands-on time. Your keyboard and mouse are on the front line, and will probably take the most punishment in terms of wear and tear, so they had better be strong too!
Depending upon how much time you intend to spend in front of your computer screen, or in the close vicinity, your wireless gaming keyboard, and your mouse could possibly be the two most touched items you place your hands upon during a day, or night, now there’s a thought! As such, they should be considered an investment, and treated accordingly, no different to your choice of CPU, or GPU. The difference is you won’t be touching your CPU, or GPU (Hopefully).
Start with your keyboard purchase, there is much to consider
If you have a rough idea of what you want, then that’s great news, however, before you go running off, you’ll need to consider how much spare desk space you will have to play with. It’s kind of the reason that you’ll start your process with the keyboard first, because limited space may mean that you can’t go for a desk consuming, oversized beast of a keyboard, if that’s your thing, of course. Or you might have to sell some bits to make space.
The great thing is that keyboards come in all shapes and sizes these days, and even if space is no issue, some serious gamers even make their choice of keyboard based on how compact the keyboard is. Their choice is made based around purpose and ergonomics, discarding things like media centre buttons, and number pads, which most keyboards have on the right-hand side. There you go, you may have already saved yourself some space and aided in the production of less plastic!
Looks and considerations
To be fair, looks aren’t really that important, quality is what you should be striving for here. Having said that, most of the top-of-the-line keyboards look damn awesome with their sleek designs and high quality RGB LEDs. For the most part, they are fully customizable in terms of lighting effects, and software that enables you to use different keys for whichever purpose you’d like. Things for you to consider are, noise, comfort and, do the company you’ve chosen offer a decent mouse that can be matched with your keyboard and software. You will want to go with the same manufacturer, most likely and take noise seriously! Noise is a big issue for some people, especially if you go for something like Logitech’s GX clicky keys, which come on their Pro X keyboard, superb quality but can sound like you’re tapping away on an old typewriter.