Corsair K70 RGB TKL Keyboard & Sabre RGB Pro Mouse Review

Corsair Champion Grade Keyboard & Mouse

Mechanical Tenkeyless and Responsive

It’s a brand new keyboard and mouse from Corsair today! Both are part of their gaming line, and in this case their Champion Series. We have the K70 RGB TKL – a TenKeyLess mechanical keyboard – the smaller sibling to the K70 and the Sabre RGB Pro gaming mouse, which might be one of the fastest mice around. More on that later.

Corsair is really emphasizing top mechanical and electrical speed coupled with an inspired flair with this launch.

I realize there could be a touch of keyboard fatigue around these parts, so we’ll try and stick to the most important parts.

The K70 TKL

Corsair has really packed in quite a keyboard within this compact tenkeyless form factor. The frame is constructed of aluminum, and the keys themselves are PBT double-shot keycaps with a 1.5mm thickness. Those should last a good long time. The switches beneath are Cherry MX, with the linear Reds on our test unit. I have decided that I like them.

Axon RTOS First

Corsair is featuring their Hyper-Polling input processing system called Axon, with an 8,000hz polling rate. Axon is onboard certain Corsair devices as a SoC (system on a chip) running a RTOS (real time operating system) as a purpose built way they endeavor to deliver very high through-put and low latencies. Oh, and bring order to all the RGBs.

The features sound very promising with Corsair detailing that their Axon is highly optimized for instruction processing, multi-threaded and being an RTOS, an appropriate scheduling algorithm to respond ultra quickly to inputs – such as keypresses or mouse movements.

It would seem that Corsair is quite serious on delivering the utmost in competitive gaming responsive performance from their input devices, as they say this system can detect keystroke inputs up to 4x faster then other typical performance keyboards, with as low as 0.25ms latency. There’s at least one independent measurement from that shows this system performing quite well.

BTW, if your new device is not hitting these new higher 8Khz polling rates, you’re going to have to set that using Corsair iCUE software device settings, with possible firmware updates.

Tournament Ready

There is a odd arrangement at the back of the keyboard, near where the USB cord plugs in. Corsair deems this the “tournament switch”, and it swaps the lighting over to a more distraction-free static backlight and disables macro activations. Interesting. There’s also a mechanical flap to, well, lock the lockout – to firmly lock it in place. Redundant. They have also added a Windows lock key (top front edge, with a lock icon) to restrict the return to Windows key. With their iCUE software, it is also possible to bind other functions to this “lock” out. This seems useful for intense gameplay, because it is extremely frustrating to accidentally flip away from your triumphant game play moment to look at your desktop. Been there, and it’s a flail fest.

Transport Controls & Custom Keycaps

Secondary functions for video playback or audio controls are also present, with a continuous volume roller. These even worked without any iCUE or software configuration on a Mac. But of course, just about anything can be custom adjusted with Corsair’s iCUE software. You could spend quite a lot of time creating application specific profiles, macros, RGB lighting effects – which on the K70 TKL are per key – so get as crazy as you wish and download them directly to the keyboard so it’s ready to go where-ever you take it. We have a cordial relationship, iCUE and I. Like that neighbor that helps you snow blow your driveway once each year, but generally keeps to themselves.

K70 RGB TKL Conclusion

Basically I like this keyboard, and this is one that fits my use cases well enough so that I will be using this as a personal gaming input. The tenkeyless form factor fits my space and requirements. I have gone back and forth on mechanical switches, but these reds are definitely to my liking. Linear, smooth and very responsive with low noise. If I spend the time with iCUE I can get the lighting effects I prefer, mapped to my applications and the key mappings I need. The AXON RTOS high polling rate and low latency gives me the peace of mind knowing that my game play is just all my fault, so that’s a fine understanding. Aluminum construction and Cherry switches speak to longevity. Having been given the experience with this set up, I can give this one an Editors Choice as I would buy it.

I did change out the keycaps with a kit from Corsair, and added the ring dampers. Ehhhh – I actually did not like the over damping and will be switching them out. But I do kinda like the white on black keys.

About that Sabre RGB Pro Mouse

My personal time was somewhat more limited with the Sabre RGB Pro mouse, but I did find it fast, clicky and light. The Sabre RGB Pro is also part of the new Corsair Champion series. As such, it also features AXON inside with an 8,000Hz polling rate, an 18,000 DPI optical sensor – customizable in single dpi steps – 50 million click-rated Omron switches and 100% PTFE glide feet. The paracord cable is designed to be drag-reducing and highly flexible – and it is. Clicks are constructed to be immediate and very responsive utilizing what Corsair calls their Quickstrike arrangement. Picture below, far right. It reduces the mechanical gap to as near “zero” as possible.

The AXON RTOS on the mouse promises to detect and deliver clicks almost instantly – and to that end – was recently tested for latency here and came out on top.