Driver

The driver for the Corsair K68 can be downloaded from their Downloads page. The latest version at the time of release was the new iCUE in its 3.11.114 variant, making iCUE effectively the third major update to the driver and bringing with it a massive change by unifying features of the older CORSAIR Link within it as well. The installer is 294 MB in size, and its installation process is fairly straightforward, as seen above. The final package takes up approximately 404 MB even though it asks for a whopping ~696 MB for itself, all numbers which are ~40–50 MB more than when I last checked out iCUE in the Strafe RGB MK.2 review last year. You will be prompted to restart Windows to finish installation, and this can't be ignored sadly. When you do open the program, it is best to have the keyboard connected, 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 is similar to the iCUE from the previous review, but it has been polished further, and even more devices are now supported, which is why the overall package is heavier on your storage drive. When not in full-screen mode, some of the menu options under the Community tab get placed into the lower-right corner instead. Clicking on a device thumbnail takes you to the device-specific controls, which is as before. iCUE is not the lightest driver I have used in terms of consuming system resources, but it is by no means the heaviest. Given the extent of control and support involved, it does feel justified.

The dashboard tab allows one to customize previews for devices, which is useful for a quick look at your system's current status. Instant lighting allows for unified lighting across all connected devices, and then we get to the global settings tab that is laid out better than before, especially on a high DPI display. Given this is a review of the keyboard and not the driver, we will focus on the settings available for the K70 RGB MK.2 SE, which include the polling rate, LED brightness, and language layout to match your actual version, in addition to the ability to check for and update the firmware if an update is available. The SE version gets its own thumbnail as well, separate from the non-SE version. Instant Lighting is at the top, allowing for all compatible, connected devices to be on the same color of your choosing in one go.

One thing the K70 RGB MK.2 (SE or otherwise) has over its predecessor is the inclusion of hardware playback, meaning that up to three profiles can be saved on to the device for the profile switch button we saw before. There are some limitations to this given iCUE allows layers of programming to exist simultaneously, so more complex profiles will still be software-based and need the driver to be running. For most people, however, being able to save onboard key assignment and a lighting effect is plenty enough, and this means you can also take the keyboard over to another PC without needing the driver. There is one limitation here, however, as we no longer have the profile import function built-in as of this driver version. CORSAIR says they are working on it, and this remains a work in progress even though it was the same before. The Performance tab is very self-explanatory and also has a small set of options, so I added it in here for a common discussion.

Actions is the first device-specific menu for customizing the functionality of the keyboard past its global settings, and note the useful pop-ups for most menu items to 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. All these software controls to choose from 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.

As before, we have everything lighting bundled together in an organized, three-column approach in the lighting tab. The driver shows a preview of the active lighting scheme, which can include a single layer or multiples as one. The options here are rich, going from preset static and dynamic effects to custom versions taking full advantage of the 16.8 M RGB per-key backlighting. As it stands, this is a big user experience improvement, and iCUE—at least in the current version pertaining to this keyboard—is easier to use than most of the competition despite being one of the most powerful in terms of customization options. Also, it is finally a unified driver for the CORSAIR ecosystem, but that is a topic for another time.

Note that despite the SE version getting its own thumbnail, any changes done to it or the non-SE version are implemented for both, as seen in the videos above. I am pretty sure that no buying customer will have one of each connected at the same time, so it hardly matters, and this was handy in coordinating the lighting on the two keyboards for this review.