Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT Review

Introduction

The Corsair range of keyboards have long been a successful one, combining excellent build quality with plenty of features and that famous scroll wheel volume control.

One area where the size of the Corsair company has always born fruit is in their ability to update their models to ensure that they are keeping them bang up to date with all the latest trends and developments.

The K95 Platinum keyboard was the zenith of their keyboard designing abilities, combining all the current thinking with their very highest standards of reliability and build quality alongside a complete range of customisable lighting effects so that even the most demanding user will find a setting that matches their needs. Despite being around for a while it's still one of the top three keyboards around, so when we heard that Corsair had revisited it and revised it we knew that we wanted to see what they had up their sleeve and whether the K95 Platinum, now in XT guise, could still claim to match any other offering available on the market.

The big new element is Corsair flexing their purchase of the Elgato Stream Deck and combining this with the K95 Platinum XT, although there are some other subtle tweaks going on to maintain the flagship status the K95 is famous for. Let's discover what is new and if the key elements are still as good as ever.

Technical Specifications

Much of the specifications for the K95 Platinum XT will be familiar to anyone who has look at it before. The beefy aluminium chassis has dedicated media keys and volume keys, Cherry MX switches, dedicated macro keys and the RGB light bar that differentiates it from many other models on the market. New to the XT revision are the inclusion of the latest iteration of the Cherry MX Silver and Brown switch options which now come with a 100 million stroke guarantee so that even those of you writing a thick triliogy of books won't be left in the lurch. You can still get the K95 Platinum XT with the clicky Blue switches if you prefer, but our review sample comes with the Speed variant and their 1.2mm actuation distance.

There is also Stream Deck functionality built into both the Stream Deck and iCUE software packages, and the keycaps have been beefed up to double-shot ones, as thick as any we've seen. Enough waffle though, let's look at it in the flesh.