A pet peeve of mine with mechanical keyboards is that they may launch with all the switches they claim to support only for some of the less-popular models to be dropped over time without any product information updates. Sometimes, they don't even launch all switches at release with claims of some coming soon. Covering keyboards at their launch means we simply do not have the means to predict what happens next, but in this case, the power of hindsight with reviewing a keyboard that launched before means we see how it held over time. Cougar decided to step away from their Cherry MX switch supply with the Ultimus RGB, and it is nearly impossible to find this keyboard in two of the four switch offerings, at least in the USA. Adding to the confusion further is the presence of the older Ultimus, which also supports RGB lighting, albeit in some multi-color zones only. Retailers have taken to combining the two in a single product URL, and it is up to the user to figure out what is what.

You do get per-key 16.8 M RGB backlighting with the Ultimus RGB as opposed to the Ultimus keyboard, but it is limited by the hardware drivers on the PCB and lack of software drivers for easy customization and full control over those 16.8 million individual colors. The company markets RGB lighting as a selling feature of the keyboard, as well as the steel frame, NKRO and 1000 Hz polling rate, which are all fairly typical for most keyboards today. Indeed, there's not a lot to distinguish the Ultimus RGB from its peers unless you want those Cougar-branded switches, although the design is fairly different and one you will either like or dislike. If this were priced in the triple digits, the keyboard would have had a really hard time selling itself in 2020. But at the current going prices of ~$77 on average, things do look a lot better. You do get the advantage of a reliable retail partner to buy from compared to the lesser-known Asian brands that have similar, if not identical PCBs and switches, and the keyboard is a solid offering with the pre-programmed functions and 14 lighting effects to choose from. It just needs to do more to merit a recommendation over other options, especially today.