OCZ Elixir Gaming Keyboard

 
The Board
 
I must admit I cheated a little here. The Elixir was the keyboard given to the clockers to use in the recent MSI European Overclocking Challenge, as one of the companies that sponsored the event was indeed OCZ. So I already had a quick play with and view of the board before unpackaging this one.
 
BoardOverview BoardClose1
 
BoardClose2 BoardClose3
 
Upon opening the box you get struck with a classy looking, albeit rather large keyboard, finished in mostly matte black with gloss strips down each side where the media controls reside. The lower portion sports a textured wrist rest. The most striking thing I found was the bright blue function keys that lined the usual QWERTY layout. It’s also worth noting that the key layout of the QWERTY section is slightly different to the standard we see used on a lot of boards, mostly around the arrow keys area.
 
Flat Feet
 
Underside
 
The board sits quite flat against the surface it’s resting on with the feet up. Flicking them down angled it to a much more user-friendly position. The underside shows off four rubber grips to keep the board from sliding about, as well as the feet tucked away.
 
Wire Back
 
Nothing particularly fancy protrudes from the rear of the keyboard. A plain USB plug on a reasonable length wire is all that is present. However, I did notice that there were unused holes for other plugs on the back of the board. Maybe for future revisions or perhaps used on the Elixir II.
 
On the next page we take a closer look at the board’s features and the software it utilises…