Software

The software driver for the CORSAIR K65 RGB MINI keyboard is iCUE and can be downloaded from their downloads page. Normally, I would use the latest public version that supports the product, but with embargo releases, it tends to be an advanced version sent to the media first before the public release. Further adding to the mix is that iCUE (or CUE, CORSAIR Utility Engine) is now in version 4 (shouldn't it have been iCUE 2 then?). The release provided to me was iCUE 4.9.318. A massive jump in numbers from the previous 3.x.xxx release, it indicates that a lot of internal and beta testing took place, which is a good thing since each major iCUE release thus far has brought with it an updated user interface, and CORSAIR aims to address some of the complaints with this update. The installer is bigger than anything else I have used for keyboards, coming in at ~760 MB. Actual installation has also been given a revamp with a more colorful skin as well as some embedded videos to play should the installation take a while. The install options are also on a single screen in four colored bars to either toggle or press for further options, which seems like a strange move, and animations and splashes of color are meant to keep your attention. CORSAIR knows that I am basically a human cat, so their tricks worked on me. The final splash screen uses their gaming-oriented typeface, which is a reminder that this is a gaming product first and foremost. Oh, and did I mention that the final install takes up a whopping 1.1 GB? To be fair to them, it does seem to tax the CPU less than before even though it supports hundreds of products across CORSAIR and other hardware brands (MSI, ASUS, and Lenovo, to name a few).


When you do open the program, it is best to have the keyboard connected, although you can still play around and get familiar with it without any connected hardware. I also got a pop-up the first time around that asked me whether CORSAIR can collect personal information, which I promptly did not consent to. Finally, I was prompted to update the firmware of the keyboard, which was necessary to unlock the 8000 Hz polling rate option here. We now finally get a look at the brand-new iCUE, and I have to say that I was never one to have a problem with the user experience of anything from CUE to iCUE. While perhaps because of all the CORSAIR reviews I have put together over the years, the more likely reason is that other software drivers have been much worse to navigate. With iCUE, CORSAIR has changed a lot of things, but some digging around revealed an iCUE skeleton that is still familiar to me. There is a sense of fun and play here with colorful skins and bolder widget-style modules on the home and device-specific pages. We also have helpful hints and tips popping up the first time around, as well as highlights and hover-over effects as the mouse cursor is moved from one point to another.

The home page retains the ability to chose and create profiles, as well as a dashboard tab to customize previews for devices, which is useful for a quick look at your system's current status. Now in the form of "Scenes," instant lighting still allows for unified lighting across all connected devices, and we see a sensor module that is quite handy for quickly taking a look at system and device-specific information. Notification buttons have been added—one told me my wireless mouse was low on battery, for example. A help page consisting of embedded CORSAIR tutorial YouTube videos has also been added. We still get the global settings tab, and it is laid out better than before, especially on a high DPI display. However, unlike before, where we had device-specific settings here, including global brightness and polling rate, the only relevant item is a firmware update tool.

One item the K65 RGB MINI has over less expensive CORSAIR keyboards is the inclusion of hardware playback, and this is a higher level of hardware playback similar to what we saw on the K100 with AXON and the 8 MB onboard memory for anything reasonable in up to fifty profiles and up to twenty lighting layers, saved to the device for use with the profile-switch button. This means you can take the keyboard over to another PC without needing the drivers for most applications. Finally, the device-specific settings have been moved here, which I think is the better place for them anyway, and this includes the option to go with the aforementioned 8000 Hz polling rate as part of their AXON hyper-processing technology.

Actions are still named in the keyboard's dashboard, but for the sake of better understanding, CORSAIR has renamed this section "Key Assignment." Additionally, the limited actions for hardware playback are in another tab, which is another good step towards lowering the entry barrier for iCUE newcomers. 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 pre-configured text, assign mouse actions to keys, completely change the typing layout if QWERTY is not your cup of tea, etc. Similarly, if you are a coder, perhaps you might want to remap Esc to ~ in a profile, given you may need it to pull up a console window or for general syntax. All these software controls 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.

Gone is the three-column approach for lighting, and we instead see a similar approach to the key assignment section in that iCUE software-profile-based lighting effects are separated from hardware lighting effects, which of course have fewer options. The actual customization of backlighting is still similar to before with layers being the name of the game to create all the complex iCUE lighting profiles others have and that really would take me too long to create myself. The effects themselves are still split across three groups. Presets are for the dynamic and reactive effects, Custom for static and gradient effects, among others, and Lighting Link goes back to the "Scenes" on the home page. Each effect has associated sub-options, including brightness level, speed, direction, and the actual color chosen from among 16.8 M options (256 brightness steps per R/G/B channel). New with this version of iCUE are custom and preset zones to more easily set the lighting effects to specific groups of keys, although you can still manually select them. The custom zones can be saved for use with any lighting effect.

As it stands, this is one of the better user experiences to be had, and iCUE is easier to use than most of the competition despite being one of the most powerful in terms of customization options. Also, it is a unified driver for the CORSAIR ecosystem, which is mostly why it takes up so much room on your storage drive. It is unfortunate then that I have had multiple issues with iCUE in combination with the K65 RGB MINI, which seems to be isolated to this keyboard only given other keyboards I've tested to rule it out. After the firmware update, or even when changing the polling rate, the keyboard would default to a static red on all keys, and nothing I did in iCUE would fix it. The virtual keyboard showed the same static red even when setting another lighting effect. I had to quit and restart iCUE to get it going again. Another bug I encountered was that lighting link across all devices seemed to be active no matter what. So if I changed the keyboard to a rainbow wave, the mouse would too. Here, I had to restart Windows itself for it to go away, although it has not happened since. Last, and arguably the worst issue of the three, is iCUE randomly crashing on me. This sometimes happened when I tried to open it from the system tray or even in the middle of an operation. I have sent crash dump files and iCUE logs to CORSAIR to see if they can identify what is going on, especially after hearing that no one else has experienced this issue to their knowledge.

[Update: March 16] As seen before, we received not one, but two replacement K65 RGB MINI units. CORSAIR clearly thought my sample was a lemon, and based on all the other reviews, it seems I was the only one with a faulty unit. I took the time to test both replacements, which did arrive after the embargo and had the review go out in its original state. That having been said, I am happy to report that I have had none of the same issues with either replacement. At this time, I am inclined to believe there must have been a really weird firmware issue that even software resets could not solve. While still bad as it happened at all, it's also fair to say that the odds of the same issues popping up again are minuscule.