Driver

The driver for the Corsair K68 is called the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) and can be downloaded from their downloads page. Version 2.22.83 is the latest public release as of the time of testing, and we made a point of using it for this review. The installer is 212 MB in size, and its installation process is fairly straightforward, as seen above. The final package takes up approximately 290 MB even though it asks for ~410 MB for itself, which makes it one of the largest peripheral driver packages I have used. Once installed, it will prompt you to open the program. It is best to have the keyboard connected before opening it, although you can still play around and get familiar with the program without any supported hardware connected.

Opening it for the first time with the keyboard connected, we see a homepage that has some features we have covered previously, such as the ability to change the background picture. We will, as such, focus more on the functionality of the driver as it pertains to the K63 Wireless keyboard. Begin by ignoring the demo products, if applicable, and clicking on the global settings page for connected devices, which in this case allows us to set the polling rate, LED brightness, LED color (if you have the ice blue version) and language layout in CUE to match the actual version. There is a separate set of wireless settings to set whether you want the LEDs to turn off after 15 minutes of inactivity to preserve battery life, enable a 100% LED brightness mode, and also have a battery gauge in the system taskbar next to CUE itself. The firmware update section is exactly that, and this unit was already on the latest available firmware. However, for the sake of the review, I chose to go through it again, and you might want to do so as well if you think the firmware did not flash correctly the first time. In order to do so, you have to have both the dongle and keyboard connected to USB ports, so this is where the provided cable will come in handy as well. A wireless firmware update is not possible, and a notification in the driver will let you know to do so. Once done, you have to disconnect the keyboard, remove the dongle, turn off the keyboard, insert the dongle again, and turn the keyboard back on. This is more complex than with wired devices, and is unfortunately not as fool-proof, so I do wish CORSAIR would have done a better job of letting the end user know as there is only a simple blog article and video that talks about this process for the partnering Dark Core mouse.

Actions is the first tab for customizing the functionality of the keyboard past its global settings, and note the useful popups for most menu items that tell you what each item does. By default, the keyboard does what the keycap legends denote, but do not let that stop you. As the video illustrates, you can record a macro, edit it completely, and assign it to a key; make a key stroke input a pre-configured text, re-assign keys in case QWERTY is not your cup of tea, etc. The software controls you can choose from help make this a fully programmable keyboard within the limits of what is allowed for the device, and changing the language in the settings page opens up more options as well. The Performance tab is very self-explanatory and also has a small set of options only, so I added it along with the Actions tab for a common discussion.

The lighting tab has always been CUE's big feature that distinguishes it from most other keyboard drivers. By default, you are in a basic/non-advanced mode wherein you can choose between preset animations you can customize based on brightness, speed, and direction of effect. The on-screen preview feature is great and also responds to the keyboard in that the brightness level selected on the keyboard dictates how well the lighting is shown in the preview as well. Note that all these lighting effects are actually pre-programmed and stored onboard the keyboard itself, as applying these effects wirelessly was deemed too slow with CUE. Instead, all CUE does here is send the signal for the keyboard to switch over to the particular lighting effect. This comes at a compromise, though, as there is no per-key lighting or anything else the advanced lighting options would allow for with other keyboards, so you are limited to what you see in the provided list. Secondly, even though the lighting effects are saved onboard, there are no hardware controls to do so without the driver, which is a shame.

You can also create multiple software profiles (no hardware playback here) to have a new set of pre-configured settings for each application or game, for example. Given the lack of advanced lighting here, there is no option to find and use profiles from others, and part of this is due to the single-color backlighting on this keyboard.

Overall, CUE 2.x has come a long way in terms of being more user-friendly even with the amount of control options available. I still think CORSAIR needs to do a comprehensive guide with audio-visual elements to help newcomers get past the steep learning curve, but once you are familiar with the driver, things do seem natural.