CES 2012: Corsair’s Vengeance series gaming keyboards are loaded with awesome

If you’ve ever considered yourself a gamer, chances are that you’ve owned a Corsair product or two in your time. The company has made great internals, such as RAM and now even SSDs, but things are taking a different turn for the company as it does a definitive focus on peripherals.

Now yes, Corsair has made peripherals of a while, but a couple of new gaming-specific keyboards and mice made their way onto our radar at CES so we thought we’d give you a peek. The Vengeance K60 and K90 are aimed at FPS and MMO games respectively, offering some great features along the way.

Vengeance K60

The K60 is for you WASD killers out there. It comes complete with a set of rubberized key caps, which cover the WASD movement keys, as well as replacement caps for the numbers 1 through 6 keys, usually assigned to weapon switching.

Of course you’ll also notice that there’s a built-in wrist rest. The rubberized texture keeps your palm comfortably in place, but it has another trick too. Along that back, you’ll see a tab. Press it in and you’ll find storage for your key caps, so you’re not going to lose them anytime soon.

Vengeance K90

The K90 won my heart quickly. As an MMO gamer myself, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a keyboard that gives you a ridiculous amount of macro control. That’s specifically what the K90 does very well. With a chunk of programmable macro buttons on the left of the keyboard, you’ll be able to set up a vast amount of commands.

The K90 also does something else very right – illumination. Instead of the gaudy, racer-boy stuff that we usually see, the K90 uses a nearly-ambient blue backlight so that you can better see your expanse of keys in the dark. Oh, and the keys are laser-etched, instead of being silkscreened, so they won’t rub off as you’re using them.

Both the 60 and 90 are made out of brushed aluminum, and designed for Windows computers. The software to control the keyboards is Windows-only, so we Mac users are a bit out of luck. But that’s somewhat to be expected as Corsair has always done Windows hardware.

Finally, and probably most important of all, these Vengeance keyboards are extraordinarily responsive. With a 40-gram activation weight on the keys, it takes just the lightest of touches to get the action that you want. If you’re used to a mechanical keyboard that’s going to be a pretty big change, but fans of the soft-touch, chicklet-style keyboards will love these.

Here’s a quick video overview for you. Stick around to catch all of our CES 2012 coverage as we highlight the best of the show floor from Las Vegas.