When CORSAIR released the K95 RGB Platinum XT earlier this year at $199.99, it being their new flagship in the ~$200 range for the next few years seemed like a safe bet. It replaced the older K95 RGB keyboard at the same price and offered a few more features, including a stock set of doubleshot-injected PBT keycaps, a light bar up top, and Elgato Stream Deck support to try and justify enough was done to merit the replacement and high price. After all, nothing else coming from the company was going to supplant it any time soon, or so I thought! Products are always on the roadmap months to years in advance, so no doubt CORSAIR had the K100 RGB planned to go out as the K95 RGB Platinum XT was launched. With the new flagship—if that even makes sense anymore—the company has broken the $200 barrier they have kept themselves to thus far. There is a $50 difference in street pricing between the K100 and K95, even if CORSAIR maintains the latter at the $200 MSRP itself. So in a weird way, they have thus far managed to keep me talking more about their other keyboards as comparisons while creating internal as opposed to more external competition. For example, a HyperX keyboard at half the price is not even directly comparable anymore. You will either dismiss the K100 as an expensive gimmick if it is simply priced out of your budget or its feature set seems bloated and not all that appealing to you. If you are seriously thinking about it and trying to justify the additional $30–$50 (dependent on region), you are already considering paying a high price for a keyboard. CORSAIR would rather you consider their other keyboards, such as the K70 RGB, if priced out of your budget or too feature rich, and therein lies their marketing strategy.

A lot of what I said about the K95 RGB Platinum XT building upon the base set by the previous K95 and adding new features holds true here as well. In fact, I do think that if the price differential were closer to $30 and you were considering the K95, you should just get this keyboard instead. The biggest change by far is the much more powerful hardware powering the keyboard, which finally allowed way more to be saved onboard the device. Hardware playback now includes as many as 200 profiles, with as many as 20 lighting effect layers each—one of the applications that came about through a whole new processing platform CORSAIR calls AXON, which also brings with it boosted USB signal strength for up to 4000 Hz polling and fast signal processing. The company pairs this with shorter actuation distance linear switches, which makes some sense logically, and introduces their first optical switch as an option, too.

The lack of other switches does hurt, at least in my opinion. Kailh, for example, has produced similarly fast switches with both tactile and clicky feedback options, but sticking with Cherry meant that was not possible here. When asked whether their new optical switch option was going to expand to a family with different switches in the future, the company refused to comment. At this time, there are no plans to have other switches with the K100 RGB, which will definitely be a dealbreaker to many in the enthusiast keyboard community. Speaking of which, the adoption of a "standard" bottom-row spacing on the K100 is a welcome surprise to many no doubt. For once you don't have to choose between that GMK keycap set you fancy and a CORSAIR keyboard if the other features are of interest. It is also worth mentioning that at this point you are likely paying more for the keycaps than most keyboards anyway, so $230 for a keyboard may be somewhat easier to justify if you fall into this category.

The other features are either identical to the K95 RGB Platinum XT, as with the doubleshot injected PBT keycaps made with a new mold to comply with the updated keycap spacing, while now also having smaller legends, and the retained Elgato Stream Deck support, or improved soft pillowy palm rest with magnets for installation, as well as the dedicated iCUE control wheel for more customization support. There are subtler changes too, with the indicator LEDs now back-lit entirely and placed in the middle alongside the updated branding design. At this point, the all-new CORSAIR K100 RGB keyboard does everything but add analog control to the switches, which makes the K95 RGB a poor buy for most regions. Plenty of novel things here merit an innovation award, but that price point and some of the cons listed make it hard to completely recommend to our readers as a whole. We will take a separate look at the optical switch version to see how it fares, so keep an eye out for that review in due time.