Lighting and Performance

The ASUS ROG Azoth Extreme supports N-key rollover USB and 2.4 GHz out of the box, which tested successfully using Aqua's test. It defaults to 6KRO with Bluetooth as expected. Switch Hitter confirmed no chatter with these keys either, and seen above are all the functions with dedicated keys on the base layer. You can of course use Armoury Crate to remap the keys as desired, but this is a pretty good base layer in my books.


You can do a lot without ever installing Armoury Crate, as ASUS has a good amount of onboard controls pre-programmed on the Azoth Extreme. This includes on-the-fly macro recording and lighting controls, as well as getting back some of the missing keys compared to a TKL keyboard via the Fn layer. The control knob adds further to the customer's quality of life, offering not just volume control as usual, but also lighting effects and even some fan control—needs to be enabled first in software. This works in conjunction with the OLED display alongside, which also helps indicate which mode the knob is in, to do a lot more than just display some cool looking images on the screen.



Here's a look at what I meant, and having the display be a touchscreen also helps. I also appreciated the ability to adjust the display brightness to help avoid any burn-in issues on the OLED display. There is also system monitoring, audio visualization, and even a KPS counter in addition to having your own custom images and animations, or even selecting from a variety of display wallpapers/GIFs provided by ASUS. I do wish the screen was larger though, especially since the text can be small and not immediately clear from a standard typing posture. The keyboard status indicators are also here too, and it also helps show the battery level, the connection mode, and the connected device too. This is handy given the ROG Azoth Extreme can be connected to as many as three devices simultaneously in Bluetooth mode to make for a maximum total of five devices across the three connectivity modes. The user manual describes how to pair the keyboard in the wireless modes, and we saw before how Armoury Crate helps customize the sleep state of the device to save battery life. That said, while we may not know the exact battery capacity inside, I can say that I've used this keyboard for over a month now and had to manually set all the LEDs to 100% (they are set to 50% brightness by default) to even get the battery low enough after two weeks of regular use to merit charging the keyboard. I am more than happy with the battery life thus and the strong wireless connections with my laptop and desktop also meant this is one of the very few keyboards that you can legitimately treat as a wireless keyboard without feeling compromised. There is faster charging on offer too, allowing you to get the keyboard from ~15-100% in 2.5 hours off a USB PD output.


I mentioned before how the keycap legends are mostly backlit here, which will no doubt please many who find the current trend of opaque keycaps not to their liking. That said, there are still multiple keycap legends here which are not backlit, as mentioned on page three. While the Azoth Extreme would not be a first-choice for those wanting a bright light show on your desk in the absence of a translucent chassis and/or side/bottom lighting, I am more than happy with the balance of function and form achieved here. The LEDs are bright enough to allow you to use the keyboard even in a completely dark room, however bad it may be for your eyes, and of course the OLED screen will catch your eye too with the smooth animations if you prefer to use it as such. Seen above is the keyboard in a few different lighting effects to show there's not a lot of light bleed, color fidelity is on the better side of average, and there's another dynamic effect shown too which also has the OLED display in a fireworks GIF that comes preinstalled in Armory Crate.




ASUS was making a big deal about its new ROG NX Snow switch at Computex, and made sure my review sample of the Azoth Extreme shipped with it. Having used it for a while now and even trying the switches by themselves, I can see why. The ROG NX Snow is a linear switch, but it feels about as "thocky" as it gets for linear switches. ASUS says the switch materials, as well as the acoustics along the stem travel path, were purposely designed to create a smooth and satisfying sound—job well done then! This is incredibly smooth and consistent across the entire board, with a randomly chosen set of 20 switches being within 0.3 gf of each other when bottomed out. Some of this can be attributed to the inside of the top housing being extremely polished, allowing for the composite POM stem to glide through effortlessly even before the lube applied on the step comes into the picture. The ROG NX Snow is a full-size mechanical switch actuating at 1.8 mm with a rated actuation force of 45 gf and bottoms out at 3.6 mm/53 gf.

As such, you are very likely going to bottom out here and having the switches sound well within themselves as well as with the confines of the rest of the keyboard around is paramount. Helping with the typing feel on the keyboard is also the adjustable gasket mount, which also affects the sound as seen above in the second recording, with the "Hard" mode used first and then the "Soft" mode. It's an appreciable change in how much the keyboard supports, or rather resists, your typing. Between this, the switches, the metal case, the carbon fiber plate, and the well-implemented dampening all throughout, the Azoth Extreme sounds very crisp and pleasant to my ears. There is of course no ping or reverberation here as expected. I will go as far as to say this is probably the best sounding and feeling pre-built keyboard I've used in a long, long time, and this is from someone who still prefers tactile switches overall.