Use
Gaming keyboards are often classified using rather vague terms to describe the characteristics desirable to gamers. One such aspect is the response time/latency of the keyboard switches. Although keyboards seem to be pretty simple things, there are many different design paths that can be taken during their development. These choices often end up primarily affecting the response time of the switches. Gamers label keyboards that have low response times and low latency as “fast”. Let us tell you that if you are looking for a “fast” keyboard, the SteelKeys 6G will serve you well. Beyond the subjective feeling that this keyboard just plain feels fast, the switches of the SteelKeys 6G are gold plated. While at first the whole gold thing may just seem like a marketing gimmick, when you consider that the electrical conductivity of Gold is nearly twice that of the traditionally used Copper, and that the electrical resistivity of Gold is about 40% that of Copper, you can begin to see that there are probably some performance benefits. Of course, we are unsure how tangible these performance benefits are, and unfortunately we really don’t have the means to find out. However, if our assumptions that the electrical properties of these materials do indeed make a significant difference, then we are left wondering why SteelSeries wouldn’t use a material like Silver, which is quite a bit more conductive and less resistive than even Gold. What it all boils down to is that the SteelKeys 6G is very responsive to keystrokes.


The operating force of the keys is also ideal for gaming. The keys are not so light that your fingers can easily push them down while just resting on the board, but they are heavy enough that your fingers seem to rebound from the keystrokes very quickly, allowing for overall faster typing and more effective micro-management. This characteristic could make this the dream keyboard for RTS players that are constantly trying to find ways to minimize the time it takes them to command a group of units through hotkeys on the keyboard.

As RTS games get more and more challenging, keyboard manufacturers try to meet the demands of gamers looking for the ability to press down more keys at once. In fact, the SteelKeys 6G was originally developed in response to a game called "o2", in which it became necessary at times to press 8 keys simultaneously. While the ability to press 8 keys simultaneously in a first person shooter is not needed in any game we know about, there may be some crazy use for this feature that we are unaware of. The keyboard is meant to allow 8 keys to be pressed simultaneously when being used on the PS/2 interface. In our initial testing, which consisted of what we affectionately call the “annoying beep test”, the keyboard would register 5 keys on the USB interface. On the PS/2 interface, the keyboard would register the advertised 8 keys. We did this by holding down keys and then pressing another key to see if the system beeped. If it didn’t beep, we would push down another and try again. Primary testing in-game was done by seeing whether a command would work while 7 other keys were pressed down at the same time. All of our tests show that indeed, you CAN push 8 keys down at the same time and expect them to work.


The final thing to mention about the SteelKeys 6G is the sound it makes. Nobody is a fan of that loud and annoying clickity-clack typing sound that is produced by certain older keyboards. We found the noise that the SteelKeys 6G makes to be nowhere near as loud or annoying as our previous keyboard, a generic one that came with an OEM computer many many years ago. In fact, we made a couple of quick recordings of the sound to prove it. The following recordings were taken when typing this sentence:

"The SteelKeys 6G keyboard is much quieter than our previous one. "

Both of these recordings were taken with the microphone in the same place (about 3 inches away, next to the mouse) and the keyboards in the same location on the desk.