Driver

The driver for the Corsair K68 is called the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) and can be downloaded from their downloads page. Version 2.14.67 is the latest public release, and we made a point of using it for this review. Installation is fairly straightforward and takes up approximately 390 MB for the entire package, 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 changing the background picture and so on. We will, as such, focus more on the functionality of the driver as it pertains to the K68 keyboard. Begin by ignoring the demo products and clicking on the keyboard icon at the top, as it is recognized as the only connected, supported device here. Doing so brings up options for the K68.


There is a global settings page for the device, which in this case allows us to set the polling rate, LED brightness, language layout in CUE to match your actual version, and the LEDs in CUE to match what you have. As I mentioned before, some regions get blue LEDs and others red, so change the region here as you see fit. You can also update the keyboard's firmware, although this keyboard being so new, there was no update, and yet the error message saying it could not check for an update continued to persist as an icon in the bottom-left corner until manually dismissed. You can also manually input a firmware update file if provided as such from Corsair, but you will more often than not just let the program check and tell you if there is an update to the currently installed version of CUE (a message will pop up on the homepage) or the keyboard's firmware.


Actions is the first tab for customizing the functionality of the keyboard past its global settings, and did I mention those helpful cues that come up if you click on the help button on each tab/page? I do wish they would be more detailed, but they do proof useful as they are should you wish to quickly figure out what does what. The actions tab is where you assign or re-assign what a key's actuation 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 presence of software controls to choose from helps 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 too. 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.




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 mode wherein you can choose between preset animations you can customize based on brightness, speed, and direction of effect, and you can even add/order multiple effects to run together. It may not look pretty, but the hardware supports it and the software takes advantage of it to give you the option to go nuts. Toggle over to advanced mode and you now get even more customization options, ranging from per-key gradient settings for static lighting, which would result in your choice of red from among 256 different shades in this particular case, or a combination of gradient animation effects, as I did above. The on-screen preview option really helps, but clearly not by enough since I also displayed my lack of artistic vision and created what could best be described as a visual cacophony. Hey, all the more power to you I guess, and Corsair does oblige here.


The final option set is Performance, and it is a short one. You can perform a full reset of the keyboard or change what the Windows lock button does. That's about it! Overall, CUE remains an extremely powerful software driver that is getting user friendly as well, which is always nice to see. The K68 is limited in terms of backlighting, so the driver is not stretching its legs by as much as it can either. No RGB Share, of course, but neither is there any equivalent of it for keyboards with single-color backlighting. It could be argued that there is little point in having the 256 shades of red here, and I certainly didn't miss it myself, but am curious to hear your thoughts on this. As it is, I am not faulting the product for this at the moment.