The best gaming keyboard in 2023

The best gaming keyboards can make the difference between success or failure in some of the best PC games. So if you’re a hardcore first-person shooter player, choosing the right peripheral for you can be crucial.

Gaming keyboards can often be more expensive than their office alternatives, coming with features like RGB lighting and reprogrammable keys to help tailor to your playstyle. The best gaming keyboards also use mechanical keys (rather than membrane), to ensure players are granted better accuracy and responsiveness in frantic competitive online matches.

Below, we’ve picked out a selection of the best gaming keyboards to ensure you find a keyboard that works with your budget and fits with the amount of desk space you’re playing with. After you’ve found the gaming keyboard for you, why not pair it with the best wireless gaming mouse?

Kitted out with the right tech, your online opponents won’t stand a chance of victory.

Tony Polanco

Tony is a computing writer at Tom’s Guide covering laptops, tablets, Windows, and iPadOS. During his off-hours, Tony enjoys reading comic books, playing video games, reading speculative fiction novels, and spending too much time on Twitter. His work has appeared in publications such as Laptop Mag, PC Mag, and various independent gaming sites.

The quick list

Here's a quick overview of the best gaming keyboards you can buy right now based on our testing and reviews.

The best gaming keyboard you can buy today

The best gaming keyboard overall

The Corsair K70 Max is a gaming keyboard that means business. Thanks to its magnetic switches, you’re not only able to adjust the keys’ actuation point, but you can also program two functions on the same key. Toss in sound-dampening technology, a durable aluminum frame and a memory foam wrist rest, and you have one of the best mechanical keyboards out there.

The comfortable wrist rest and insane level of customization are also strong bonuses. Yes, the $230 asking price isn’t cheap, but if you want a full-sized mechanical keyboard with all the trimmings, the Corsair K70 Max is worth your consideration.

Read our full Corsair K70 Max review.

The best budget gaming keyboard

The Logitech G413 SE is one of the cheapest mechanical gaming keyboards you can get from a major manufacturer. It's either "no-frills" or "bare-bones," depending on how you look at it. This full-size keyboard has no extra keys, no software features and only one shade of backlighting. On the other hand, it has no wasted space, no extraneous bells and whistles, and doesn't cost a whole lot.

With tactile Long Hua switches, the keyboard has a distinctive tactile feel, which is suitable for both gaming and touch typing. Beyond that, the big draw of the keyboard is that it has minimal bezels, and squeezes a full keypad and a numpad into a relatively small frame. If you want a brand-name gaming keyboard without spending too much, the Logitech G413 SE is the one to get.

Read our full Logitech G413 SE review.

The best wireless gaming keyboard

Only time will tell for sure, but I believe that the Logitech G915 represents the future of gaming keyboards. Just as gaming mice and headsets have become increasingly wireless over the past few years, the G915 demonstrates how keyboards can take the same route without sacrificing aesthetics or performance. The G915 is a gorgeous, ultra-thin gaming keyboard that connects to computers via either USB dongle or Bluetooth. There's no lag; there are no dropped signals. It's just as quick and responsive as any wired peripheral.

Thanks to low-profile key switches and full RGB lighting, the G915 is both comfortable and visually striking. Its only real downside is that it costs a lot of money. But when you consider that it will save your desk from unsightly wires and last for many years, it could be a great investment.

Read our full Logitech G915 review or view our Logitech promo codes

The best low profile gaming keyboard

If you want a gaming keyboard that could easily double as an office model, look no further than the Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro. This minimalist peripheral is one of the sleekest gaming keyboards we've ever reviewed, combining an elegant physical design with comfortable mechanical key switches and full RGB lighting. It looks fantastic — understated, but not quite plain.

Apart from that, the DeathStalker V2 Pro works beautifully in-game, just like most of Razer's high-end keyboards. The wireless functionality is also flawless, supporting both USB and Bluetooth modes, and offering a fair amount of battery life. While the DeathStalker V2 Pro isn't cheap, it could be the centerpiece of your gaming setup — or your work-from-home setup.

Read our full Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro review.

The best hot-swappable gaming keyboard

The Razer BlackWidow V4 75% is arguably the best mechanical keyboard Razer has ever released. Featuring the latest version of the company’s Orange Tactile mechanical switches, a compact 75% layout, and features borrowed directly from the keyboard modding community, the BlackWidow V4 75% is one of the best gaming keyboards you can buy.

As the company’s first hot-swappable keyboard, you’re able to customize this peripheral however you want. However, we’d argue you don’t need to mod it at all since it’s so great out of the box.

Read our full Razer BlackWidow V4 75% review.

The best TKL gaming keyboard

The Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series is a mouthful, but it's also one of the best gaming keyboards you can buy. This is particularly true if you're in the market for a TKL, or tenkeyless, model. Like its full-size counterpart, the Corsair K70 Mk.2, the K70 RGB TKL features authentic Cherry MX keys, a gorgeous design and robust software. You can customize intricate lighting patterns, set up profiles for individual games or even reprogram any key you choose. It's a versatile system.

Like other Corsair keyboards, the K70 RGB TKL is pretty expensive. Furthermore, while its discrete media keys come in hand, their nonstandard configuration makes them a little more difficult-to-use than what you'd find on a full-size model. Aside from that, though, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL is a nearly flawless device.

Read our full Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review.

The best mini gaming keyboard

The HyperX Alloy Origins 60 demonstrates that mini keyboards can be perfectly good for gaming. This 60% keyboard doesn't have a numpad, a function row or arrow keys, but if you can live with learning some button shortcuts, it's a fantastic way to streamline your gaming experience while saving some desk space. Furthermore, the Alloy Origins 60 employs comfortable HyperX Red key switches, and offers a full array of RGB lighting.

Granted, the Alloy Origins 60 might be a tough sell if you're not already committed to a mini keyboard design. Touch typists will find a lot of their favorite buttons missing, and the keys switches are a little louder than you'd expect. Still, as mini gaming keyboards go, this is one of the better ones.

Read our full HyperX Alloy Origins 60 review.

The best 65% gaming keyboard

The Razer BlackWidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed is one of the best mini gaming keyboards you can buy. Unlike smaller models, the V3 Mini Hyperspeed features a 65% profile. That means you won't have to sacrifice discrete arrow keys or a dedicated delete button. That's great news for touch typists. For gamers, the V3 Mini Hyperspeed features comfortable Razer Green or Yellow switches, as well as full RGB lighting, which you can sync with your other Razer gear.

Granted, the BlackWidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed is extremely expensive, considering its size. As a wireless keyboard with powerful lighting capabilities, you can also run through the battery pretty quickly, at least on default settings. Still, if your desk space is limited, the BlackWidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed is good for typing, good for gaming and good for saving room.

Read our full Razer BlackWidow V3 Mini Hyperspeed review.

How to choose the best gaming keyboard

There are three things to consider when trying to find the best gaming keyboard for your setup: Design, features and price. All three are interconnected, however — keyboards with more complex designs and fancier features cost more money. Simpler keyboards are cheaper. There are no special tricks here.

The first thing you'll want to determine is whether you want a full-size or tenkeyless keyboard. This is a pretty simple decision: Full-size keyboards have separate number pads on the right, while tenkeyless models don't. If you do a ton of productivity work, a numpad is worthwhile; if not, you can eschew it and save a few bucks.

During this time, you should also consider what kind of switches you'd like, if you're buying a mechanical model. Cherry MX is generally the gold standard. The most common types of Cherry switches are Red, which is quiet and linear, Brown, which is quiet and tactile, and Blue, which is noisy and tactile. Other switch manufacturers generally offer similar styles, although the color coding may be different.

Some features cost more money than others. RGB lighting can tack a few dozen bucks onto a gaming keyboard's price tag, and wireless connectivity can make a peripheral even more expensive. I personally like both of these options, but they're not necessarily worth the money if you're not worried about the aesthetics from your setup. After all, wireless keyboards don't necessarily offer a huge advantage, as keyboards are stationary devices.

How we test the best gaming keyboards

To determine the best gaming keyboard, we run each keyboard we review through a variety of tests. The first, and most important, test is to play through a number of different games, and see how the keyboard holds up. I usually like to try at least one FPS, RTS, RPG and MMO apiece, since these are the genres that benefit most from a good keyboard. (You can generally get away with a controller for most action/adventure titles.)

After that, we take a deep dive into a keyboard's software suite, evaluating how easy (or difficult) it is to reprogram keys, set up macros, adjust lighting and create profiles for games. Particularly intuitive software gets high marks; convoluted software can lose some points, even if it's very robust otherwise.

Finally, we make sure to use a keyboard for productivity for at least two or three days. Most gamers don't swap keyboards in and out; what they use for gaming, they'll need to use for work and general computing as well. The better a keyboard is at everyday tasks, the better its recommendation.