Software

The software support for the Thermaltake ARGENT K5 keyboard comes in the form of TT iTAKE Engine, which can be downloaded from the downloads page. The latest public version during testing was 1.5.2, and the installer is 77.5 MB. As seen above, installation is fairly straightforward, and the final package takes up approximately the same. The package was fairly light on system resources last time around (1.4.2), but this time, it's taking up more CPU utilization than I would like, often to the point of exceeding 10% when in the foreground on an 8-core Intel Core i9-9900K.


Opening it for the first time with the keyboard connected, we see a homepage that is well laid out with a top row that lists the various connected, software-compatible products. Note, however, that I cropped part of the bottom slightly because TT iTAKE Engine displays your desktop name and IP address there for some reason, which hasn't changed since we last saw this program. At the top is a keyboard tab, so other product categories presumably appear up there depending on which other compatible TT iTAKE Engine devices are connected.

There is not a lot to see in the settings menu except for all that advertisement of what else you can do outside of TT iTAKE Engine. It comes off a bit obnoxious, but is at least kept away from the user experience as a whole. There is a mobile app, other desktop programs, and Amazon Alexa integration, just in case it interests you. I have none primarily because I lack another compatible device, so I moved on. In the video above, you can also see how there is software control over the six onboard profiles, which can be associated with programs and renamed too, and these have pre-programmed lighting effects for a quick visual identifier.

A large virtual keyboard is the base for the customization menu, including selecting a key and remapping it to a plethora of options, such as assigning a macro, game shortcut, opening a program or URL, and disabling it altogether. The tab alongside allows for the creation of new macros and recording, as well as the ability to edit the macros, including moving keystrokes up and down and changing delays between keystrokes, which ties back into the key-mapping functionality.

The third tab is titled "Lighting" and is for just what the name suggests. There is a good set of functionality and customization here, including static, dynamic, and reactive effects. These are available on a per-key basis with 256 steps of brightness control through R/G/B channels, which makes for a total of 16.8 M colors for each key. Each effect also has sub-menus for more options, although there are only speed and direction for most. A big difference compared to the older Level 20 GT RGB keyboard and kept from the Level 20 RGB—yes, I know they sound similar—is the presence of more lighting zones through a whopping 50 more RGB LEDs around the keyboard for that extra bit of pizzazz. The final tab is TT Sync. While I have no other compatible device, it presumably works as expected—I can't test it at all.

As mentioned before, there is also an iOS and Android companion app for TT iTAKE that requires you to have the app installed on a device that is on the same Wi-Fi network as the PC with the full drivers installed. In theory, you are then able to pair your app device for control over lighting effects and the creation of simple macros, in addition to actually playing PC games with a virtual controller on your smartphone. Unfortunately, the app just kept crashing every single time I tried to pair it, and it appears that this is more common than not at this time. The ARGENT K5 is also part of a product lineup supported by Tt's RGB PLUS unifying software for lighting and can be synchronized with other compatible products of which I have none to test. Finally, and in a theme here, there is beta compatibility with Razer Synapse, if you have other Razer products.