Considering the expertise ASUS holds in this department, the TUF Gaming K5 is a bit of a let-down, quite frankly.
The build quality isn’t great, with a muffled sound to the key switches, a flexible backplate, rubber-coated USB cable and “spill-resistance” of 60ml. We expect better for our £70 when keyboards of considerably better quality are available at the same price from many retailers.
Gaming performance is decent. The comfortable shape and 24-key rollover paired with the 1ms polling rate make gaming on the keyboard a doddle, but the Mech-Brane key switch ruins the experience with an awkward bump half-way down the key’s travel that doesn’t have anything to do with the key being registered by the PC.
The RGB lighting, while reasonably well-lit, isn’t up to scratch with other offerings in this price range and offers limited customisation in the ROG Armoury software suite due to the lack of per-key backlighting.
Overall, we find the ASUS TUF Gaming K5 very difficult to recommend. There’s too much competition from the likes of Razer and ROCCAT as well as G.SKILL who offer the KM570 RGB with proper Cherry MX mechanical key switches and RGB lighting at a similar price which we’d take every day of the week.
Sadly, the ASUS TUF Gaming K5 doesn’t really tick any of the boxes in our “gaming keyboard” criteria aside from good comfort and is lacking too many features that we’d expect to find at this price point, if they could drop the price to around £50, we'd be much more inclined to recommend it.
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Join in with the discussions on Discord
The build quality isn’t great, with a muffled sound to the key switches, a flexible backplate, rubber-coated USB cable and “spill-resistance” of 60ml. We expect better for our £70 when keyboards of considerably better quality are available at the same price from many retailers.
Gaming performance is decent. The comfortable shape and 24-key rollover paired with the 1ms polling rate make gaming on the keyboard a doddle, but the Mech-Brane key switch ruins the experience with an awkward bump half-way down the key’s travel that doesn’t have anything to do with the key being registered by the PC.
The RGB lighting, while reasonably well-lit, isn’t up to scratch with other offerings in this price range and offers limited customisation in the ROG Armoury software suite due to the lack of per-key backlighting.
Overall, we find the ASUS TUF Gaming K5 very difficult to recommend. There’s too much competition from the likes of Razer and ROCCAT as well as G.SKILL who offer the KM570 RGB with proper Cherry MX mechanical key switches and RGB lighting at a similar price which we’d take every day of the week.
Sadly, the ASUS TUF Gaming K5 doesn’t really tick any of the boxes in our “gaming keyboard” criteria aside from good comfort and is lacking too many features that we’d expect to find at this price point, if they could drop the price to around £50, we'd be much more inclined to recommend it.
Pros+ Comfortable to use
+ Has RGB lighting
+ 1000Hz polling rate
+ Looks good
Cons
- Flimsy chassis
- Not per-key RGB backlighting
- Keys don’t feel like mechanical key switches at all
- Too costly
- No media keys (dedicated or otherwise)
- No braided cable
+ Has RGB lighting
+ 1000Hz polling rate
+ Looks good
Cons
- Flimsy chassis
- Not per-key RGB backlighting
- Keys don’t feel like mechanical key switches at all
- Too costly
- No media keys (dedicated or otherwise)
- No braided cable
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
Join in with the discussions on Discord
