Driver

There is no software driver support for the HyperX Alloy FPS, with all functionality built into the keyboard using secondary functions. As such, I have chosen to combine the Driver and Performance pages into one here.

Performance

There is six-key rollover USB here to choose from for any diagnostics related usage, but the keyboard comes with NKRO enabled by default, as Aqua's test confirms. Similarly, no key chatter is detected using Switch Hitter, which is as expected.


The CODE has red backlighting on the switches, and the stock keycaps have laser-etched legends that are illuminated either directly or via light bleed. Most of the secondary legends are above or below the primary ones, and these do not light up as uniformly even with the LEDs at 100% brightness. As far as lighting control goes, there are five steps of brightness control (0/25/50/75/100%) available via Fn + Up/Down arrow keys. There are also some lighting effects that can be toggled using the Fn + Left/Right arrow keys:







There are a total of six lighting modes, including the effects seen above, with three non-responsive (wave, breathing and static), two responsive to typing (burst and reactive trigger), and a custom mode that simply toggles between the 1, 2, 3, 4, WASD, and space bar being backlit or not. Not much to brag about but rather a way to tick off a list of features for marketing, but then again, there is not much you can do with single color backlighting anyway. I suspect most will use a static backlighting option with a set brightness level or off anyway.

For what is touted as a gaming motherboard, there is no macro recording or key (re)assignment support here. This is really as standard as a keyboard can be in terms of functionality for gamers. There are some media controls available via the function keys, along with a game mode on/off toggle that deactivates the Windows key, so I am not really sure what exactly the "gamer" part here is.


As always, the sound of a keyboard is based on more than just the switch type. So when comparing sound clips, consider the keyboard as a whole. In this case, I have provided above an example sound clip of me typing on the HyperX Alloy FPS sample at ~80 WPM (not so used to the ISO layout here, unfortunately). For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with clicky/tactile switches. I did bottom out on purpose to demonstrate the sound signature, although it is fairly easy not to do so with Cherry MX Blue switches with some practice. In terms of actuation and bottoming out, there is not much to say here except that the usual Cherry high QC carries over with an average actuation force of 49.91 cN for the MX Blues averaged across twenty keys on the sample provided. Bottoming out seemed regular if you are prone to do so, and nothing jumped out at me that was any different from the rest.