gaming keyboard vs normal.

[flyingsnow89]

Hey guys, so me and my mates was having a conversation and some one got jealous i bought a razor widow chroma. He then goes on to say that there is no point in buying a keyboard like mine, a normal keyboard is just as good. we got into a little debate about response times ect. he said i know nothing about it bla bla. basically i would like help to gather information to further back my claim that i would have a edge over his normal rig. seems childish i know but would like to give him some knowledge on the subject thanks guys!

[tlink]

doesn't matter if its a gaming keyboard or not. the difference is extremely marginal and normal keyboards often incorporate the same tech without the gaming aesthetic. it all just comes down to preference, its not like the difference between mouse vs controller in accuracy.

[Jack Longman]

I have a blackwidow chroma also. I find that having very noticable gaps inbetween the keys makes it much more difficult to do things like press 2 keys at a time by accident, I also think because you can feel the actuation you can type much quicker on a gaming mechanical keyboard. I often turn off my main room light at night to conserve electricity and therefore the backlit keyboard is really useful there. I also watch youtube on my pc whilst in bed so having a backlit keyboard means i can easily type on it without having to shine a light on it or turn on my light. There are plenty of advantages for someone like me and since having a mechanical keyboard i would never go back to having a normal keyboard

[samcool55]

Well, not to ruin it but a "gaming" keyboard doesn't exist.

It's just a marketing term that gets slapped on a keyboard to sell it to gamers...

 

There is exactly 0 difference between a "normal" and a "gaming" keyboard. The only thing that can make a keyboard "gaming" is the marketing department.

 

However, there are differences between a mechanical keyboard and a normal keyboard that could give you an advantage.

Not that it's much but hey, better than nothing right

 

Let us know if you want a mechanical vs membrane/scissor keyboard discussion, that's one we can have.

But a "gamer" vs "normal", nothing to discuss there so that's a dead end...

[Rambo3456]

46 minutes ago, flyingsnow89 said:

Hey guys, so me and my mates was having a conversation and some one got jealous i bought a razor widow chroma. He then goes on to say that there is no point in buying a keyboard like mine, a normal keyboard is just as good. we got into a little debate about response times ect. he said i know nothing about it bla bla. basically i would like help to gather information to further back my claim that i would have a edge over his normal rig. seems childish i know but would like to give him some knowledge on the subject thanks guys!

If you have a keyboard like a razer it's better because it probably has mechanical switches which have a faster response time then regular men brain  or rubber dome also mechanical keyboards could also have anti ghost and key rollover 

[treeroy]

the difference between a "gaming" keyboard and a "non-gaming" keyboard is that you get red and blue lights on it & you pay 3x more

[Naeaes]

Looks like people aren't as exited about mechanical swithces and high polling rate as I am. Huh. Well, here's a few thoughts from me too:

 

I got these bullet points at http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-chroma 

Razer™ Mechanical Switches with 50g actuation force

Best mechanical switches and best actuation force is a matter of opinion but mechanical swithces retain the force across however many presses they're rated for. It'a just as stiff or loose for the first key press as it is for the Millionth. Rubber dome and chicklet switches wear down and lose their stiffness over. Anyone who's been on a rubberdome KB for ten years can tell you their W isn't as stiff as their F7.

80 million keystroke life span

To put some perspective, typing in the entire Bible would get you roughly 87500 presses on each key (Assuming 3,5 Million letters across 40 keys spread equally) You could type the bible about 900 times with this KB and it would take you 27 years of constant 220 letters/minute. That's all just to say, you're very highly unlikely to wear down your switches during the normal life span of an electrical device.
Rubber domes come in various flavors with varying qualities but usually about 10 Million is quoted for them but as said, that's when they're unusable. Rubber domes get gradually mushier.

Chroma backlighting with 16.8 million customizable color options

This is actually a little BS IMHO, but yeah. Each key has a 3-color LED with the three basic colors red, green and blue. Each of those three has the ability to be run at 256 levels of voltage so 256*256*256=1677216. Assuming each level of voltage actually produces a distinct color, it's rougly 16,8 million. Which I'm thinking it doesn't. Going on, having a dark color also means that the LEDs are almost off. Which is not very awesome ig the purpose is to light up the keys. Anyhoo, it's got a backlight and you can set it to different colors and even dynamically. Not every keyboard has that.

Razer Synapse enabled

This is not much of a selling point either but Synapse is a proprietary setup software and a joined could storage for settings. You can save your settings in the cloud on one computer, take the KB to another and transfer the settings from the cloud. 

10 key roll-over anti-ghosting

By design(flaw), there's a limit to how many keys can be pressed down and recognized in USB keyboards. Usually it's at least five but by no means not always. This one can do 10. And it's any 10 too. So you can have the four-way match in slicks'n'slide you always dreamed of (It's a 90's racing game where the multiplayer was done using just one keyboard so 8 keys down at once happened all the time. Ghosting made it very unplayable)

Fully programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording

So your A-key prints an "A". What if you want it to print "B"? Of is you want your F1 to be F2 and vice-versa for whatever reason. A programmable KB can do that. The ability to recod macros without having to shut down or escape any programs is a sweet bonus. 

5 additional dedicated macro keys

There are those extra keys for which you can pre-program a string of keypresses and re-produce it at whim. Here's how it works. Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.Here's how it works.

Gaming mode option
I dont' actually know. For my Logitech keyboard "Gaming mode" means that the Windows key is disabled. If I press it by accident, it won't open the start menu. That's super useful. Hopefully Razer has the same idea.

Audio-out/mic-in jacks

I'd like this. Currently my headset cable runs across the keyboard to the output on my speakers.

USB pass-through
There's a USB jack on the keyboard. Very useful for plugging the odd stick every now and then without having to reach very far.

1000Hz Ultrapolling
Polling rate has to do with the latency you were allegedly struggling with. You see, the keyboard doesn't actually transmit the key presses without driver asking for it. Instead it stores each press in it's internal buffer and transmits the whole buffer at once. So this one does it at 1000Hz rate meaning one thousand times a second. Which mean at the very most, there's a 1 nanosecond delay. Note that the delay varies according to when you press the key in relation to when the buffer was last purged. Normally keyboards have 125Hz polling rate. Do the math yourself. Won't get you laid, sorry. But that's the kind of delay you can feel in games as it only adds to your ping and monitor latency.

Braided fiber cable
Everything seems to be braided these days. There's less friction and it adds tensile streanght. So you don't get the cord snagged behing the desk so easily and you don't break it when you do. 

I omitted the size and weight. I don't care much. I guess weight heps it keep from slipping.

[flyingsnow89]

46 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Well, not to ruin it but a "gaming" keyboard doesn't exist.

It's just a marketing term that gets slapped on a keyboard to sell it to gamers...

 

There is exactly 0 difference between a "normal" and a "gaming" keyboard. The only thing that can make a keyboard "gaming" is the marketing department.

 

However, there are differences between a mechanical keyboard and a normal keyboard that could give you an advantage.

Not that it's much but hey, better than nothing right

 

Let us know if you want a mechanical vs membrane/scissor keyboard discussion, that's one we can have.

But a "gamer" vs "normal", nothing to discuss there so that's a dead end...

it was basically what i was trying to say really in the title but did not know the right way to put it :D. But basically you lot have answered my question. i have better durability and response time as mine are 80g switches, but wont really impact the game play.

[samcool55]

24 minutes ago, flyingsnow89 said:

it was basically what i was trying to say really in the title but did not know the right way to put it :D. But basically you lot have answered my question. i have better durability and response time as mine are 80g switches, but wont really impact the game play.

The 80g just means how much force it requires to push it

Durability should be a plus for mechanical keyboard, but the issue is that razer in general doesn't have a good rep here.

 

To keep it short, a few years ago you had 1 mechanical switch producer, cherry.

Solid things, quite expensive but the quality was awesome.

 

Razer sold mechanical keyboards with cherry switches like everybody else because that's the only option you had.

Anyway, a few years ago the mechanical key patent from cherry expired, result of that is that other companies could make cheap alternatives of them.

 

So some companies decided to release keyboard with the alternative switches. They were worse in every single way (not complete crap but still) but they were cheaper.

 

Eventually the complete razer mechanical keyboard line-up switched from cherry switches to alternative switches. So production cost went down and the quality got worse. That's fine apart from 1 VERY big issue i have with it.

 

The price didn't change, AT ALL.

It stayed exactly the same, so they made their products worse and still asked full price for it. Which is unacceptable to me.

Since then i refuse to go razer, i only bought 2 products of them (a blackwidow with cherry MX blue switches, the good ones and a headset, can't remember the name) and those were the last ones i'll ever buy.

 

I just don't like what they are doing for the last few years...

[LogicalDrm]

"Gaming" is mostly marketing term. There are some pros about gaming peripherals. Like with mice you get much more durability and features over normal ones. I know many professionals who work with design softwares and use gaming grade mice because of that. With keyboards you don't get much difference. Maybe bit more durability. Rest is fancy lights and bunch of things you don't end up using. Mech keyboards are different. You just don't go back when you try and get one. I know, I was skeptical when I moved from gaming rubber dome to Shine 3 Browns. I just can't go back full time for other keyboards. They are just too soft.

[iM8Pizza]

On 22/11/2016 at 9:54 PM, samcool55 said:

The 80g just means how much force it requires to push it

Durability should be a plus for mechanical keyboard, but the issue is that razer in general doesn't have a good rep here.

 

To keep it short, a few years ago you had 1 mechanical switch producer, cherry.

Solid things, quite expensive but the quality was awesome.

 

Razer sold mechanical keyboards with cherry switches like everybody else because that's the only option you had.

Anyway, a few years ago the mechanical key patent from cherry expired, result of that is that other companies could make cheap alternatives of them.

 

So some companies decided to release keyboard with the alternative switches. They were worse in every single way (not complete crap but still) but they were cheaper.

 

Eventually the complete razer mechanical keyboard line-up switched from cherry switches to alternative switches. So production cost went down and the quality got worse. That's fine apart from 1 VERY big issue i have with it.

 

The price didn't change, AT ALL.

It stayed exactly the same, so they made their products worse and still asked full price for it. Which is unacceptable to me.

Since then i refuse to go razer, i only bought 2 products of them (a blackwidow with cherry MX blue switches, the good ones and a headset, can't remember the name) and those were the last ones i'll ever buy.

 

I just don't like what they are doing for the last few years...

Some clones actually feel better , Gateron for example, though I can't say personally since I haven't try them

[woll3]

The only really important thing is the Key Roll Over(which is where the Black Widow actually sucks), response time doesnt really matter on a keyboard(in most cases), not to mention that Polling Rate isnt response time anyway as some of you think, you have to include time to debounce as well, also its close to impossible atm to get a delay under 1ms in total.