Patriot has thrown all but the kitchen sink at the keyboard in an attempt to appease users with one feature or the other. Dedicated media buttons, including those novel two-way toggle switches, five dedicated macro buttons, on-board lighting control, audio pass-through, USB pass-through, and 16.8 M RGB backlighting on each key, and then there is the 16.8 M RGB backlit wrist rest. For the money, Patriot is giving you a lot more hardware features than just about any other product from any other company.

This is not to say the implementation is perfect as well. The legends on the keycaps leave a lot to be desired, and given they are laser etched on ABS plastic, they will not stay pristine for long. The keyboard ID is arguably too aggressive for many, and yet I personally think it is quite acceptable in most environments. The snake head logo on the wrist rest is translucent, so it does not show as easily at an angle if not backlit, but let's face it - Patriot is clearly marketing this at gamers and not professionals in an office. The choice of the now excellent Kailh Red linear switches works well here thus, as does all that RGB backlighting. The software driver is a good mix of easy-to-use and good control, although leaving a non-functional option in is not a good move at all.

In the end, it will come down to whether you are willing to take Patriot at their word and buy this knowing the software driver will get better with more functions added. The company is well established, although the Viper brand is new. To their credit, they have done a lot of things right in trying to appease their target audience, and priced it well enough to be competitive against a lot of similar keyboards that costs upward of $160. For this alone, I have no problem recommending it to those looking for such a hardware feature set. The software driver here is a bonus on top as the keyboard lighting and macro functionality can be controlled on-board as well.