The Keychron Q6 HE 8K has some of the best magnetic switches I’ve ever tried — and it finally made me good at Counter-Strike 2

When it comes to the best gaming keyboards, the Keychron Q6 HE 8K is up there with the best — and it might be the greatest gaming deck I’ve tested yet. The Q6 HE 8K is part of Keychron’s high-end Q-series 8,000Hz lineup, and it certainly makes a splash. It’s built extremely well, and it’s designed beautifully.

It packs Keychron’s own Ultra-Fast Lime magnetic switches, whose sensitivity can be adjusted all the way down to 0.01mm. Super fast and responsive, these switches are a delight to play and type on. Also packing 8,000Hz polling and features like Rapid Trigger and Snap Tap, the Q6 HE 8K is a beast. Its sound profile is luscious, and though it’s wired-only, I doubt you’ll miss having wireless connectivity, as it’s meant to stay put on your desk.

Is this the right keyboard for you? Read my full Keychron Q6 HE 8K review to find out.

Keychron Q6 HE 8K review: Specs

Keychron Q6 HE 8K review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A full-size keyboard with Hall Effect switches and 8,000Hz polling
• Who is it for? Serious gamers who also type a lot
• How much does it cost? Quite a bit! The Keychron Q6 HE 8K is available for $239 / £229
• What do we like? The premium build and design, ultra-responsive Lime switches, 8,000hz polling and the wonderful typing experience
• What don’t we like? No wireless connectivity, one switch choice only and premium (but worth it) price tag

Keychron Q6 HE 8K review: The ups

From its ultra-responsive switches with actuation adjustable down to 0.01mm to its magnetic gaming features like Rapid Trigger and Snap Tap, the Keychron Q6 HE 8K is a stupendous gaming keyboard.

Excellent build and design

If there’s one thing Keychron’s Q-series keyboards excel at, it’s build quality and design (okay, two things). Similar to its stablemates, the Keychron Q6 HE 8K is built extremely well. Instead of utilizing full CNC-machined aluminum, like the Keychron Q12 HE ($249) and the Keychron Q5 HE ($249), the Q6 HE 8K’s plate, case and body are made of 6063 aluminum. According to Keychron, this material is “more resistant to physical damage, wear, and tear,” and it’s recyclable, so it’s great for the environment (and for us environmentally-conscious consumers).

This is all to say that the Q6 HE 8K is built like a tank — and that applies to its weight, too. Because of the aluminum build, the Q6 HE 8K weighs a whopping 5lbs, so it isn’t exactly portable. Well, I doubt you’ll be traveling with it anyway, as it sports a 100% full-size layout, so it measures 17.55 x 5.39 x 1.25 inches. This keyboard is heavier than the Q12 HE (4.85lbs) but slightly lighter than the Q14 Max ($209, 5.3lbs).

Aiding the Q6 HE 8K’s durability is its use of double-shot PBT keycaps. These are more durable than ABS ones, and they’re more resistant to oil, so you don’t need to worry about your fingerprints staining them. In addition to the exterior being rock hard, the Q6 HE 8K’s internals are packed. The keyboard features a double-gasket design with silicone pads added to the top and bottom cases. These, basically, reduce metallic pings and deliver a well-rounded sound profile when you type.

Alongside its premium build, the Q6 HE 8K sports a premium design. Available in either black or white with gradient keycaps, the keyboard fits right into any office or gaming space. I tested the white model whose keycaps are white and gray, with two of them colored blue. I think it looks great, and the per-key RGB backlighting lights up the top case and keys really well.

Buttery smooth magnetic switches

The Keychron Q6 HE 8K is nothing short of formidable when it comes to gaming. The Q6 HE 8K utilizes proprietary Keychron switches, which are made in-house. These are the Keychron Ultra-Fast Lime Hall Effect switches, and they’re now my favorite switches, full stop. They’re the most advanced switches I’ve tested yet, with each switch’s actuation adjustable between 0.01mm and 3.35mm (in increments of 0.01mm). This means that you can tailor each key to the task you’re doing or game you’re playing.

Aiding the Q6 HE 8K’s gaming performance is its 8,000Hz polling rate. This is more than plenty for gamers, whether you’re playing casually or competitively. In my testing, I didn’t experience any input lag or latency issues, which resulted in increased precision and responsiveness in every game I played.

To test the Q6 HE 8K, I played Cyberpunk 2077 for a couple of hours and a few online rounds of Counter-Strike 2. Full disclosure: while I’m great at Cyberpunk 2077, I’ve never been very good at Counter-Strike 2. I’m more of an RPG connoisseur, but even so, I actually felt competent while playing Counter-Strike 2 with this keyboard.

That’s thanks to the customizable switches, as I dropped the sensitivity of the WASD movement keys to 0.05mm. This helped me stay competitive as the keys became ultra-sensitive, so all I had to do was keep them lightly pressed to move around, which meant that if I needed to leave them, all I had to do was lightly touch them again to get moving. It proved less fatiguing that way, too.

I also dropped the sensitivity of specific weapon and command keys down to either 0.1mm or 0.05mm, so my feather-light touches were enough to activate those keys. For instance, in Counter-Strike 2, this made quick work of swapping weapons, equipping a grenade or throwable, tossing it, crouching back into hiding, all while my enemies were none the wiser of my location.

Similar to many other Keychron Q-series boards, the Q6 HE 8K features quad-actuation points, so you can assign up to four actions to one key. Two are registered on the downstroke, and the remaining two on the way back up. As an example, you can use this to have your character walk by short-pressing the W key and sprint/run by long-pressing it. This basically frees up your fingers for other keys, and I recommend playing around with this feature to figure out what works best for you.

Rapid Trigger and Snap Tap

The Keychron Q6 HE 8K is superb for gaming with its 8,000Hz polling and customizable switches — but wait, there’s more. You have Rapid Trigger at your disposal, enabled through the web-based Keychron Launcher (more on that shortly).

When enabled, this ensures that all your inputs are registered. Even if you press different keys in quick succession or they overlap, your inputs are still registered as the switches are instantaneously reset when lifted. In Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 — and other FPS games — you can counter-strafe quickly or quickly peek around corners.

Then you’ve got “Snap Tap,” or Last Key Prioritization (LKP). This is a type of Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Direction (SOCD) resolution, used to answer the question: “How does the keyboard resolve two keys with opposing outcomes that actuate at the same time and conflict?” In simple terms, with LKP enabled, the Q6 HE 8K prioritizes the last key pressed. This means that you can draw to a complete stop from a sideways strafe by pressing the opposite direction key (W and S or A and D), in games like Counter-Strike 2. This allows you to stop moving quicker and remove accuracy debuffs, improving your chances of hitting an enemy.

There’s a caveat, though. LKP can be useful in single-player games, like Cyberpunk 2077, but Valve’s official servers, specifically Counter-Strike 2, prohibit the use of Snap Tap as it’s basically a cheat code. Be warned that utilizing this feature in Valve’s games could (and probably will) get you booted out of matches and lobbies.

Fantastic to type on

Alongside being an absolute powerhouse for gaming, the Keychron Q6 HE 8K is a beast for productivity. This full-size keyboard houses 108 keys, including a full-size number pad, a function row and page navigation keys. All of these will come in handy for gamers who also type (or do a lot of math or coding) for a living.

The Q6 HE 8K’s Ultra-Fast Lime magnetic switches are also wonderful to type on. They work in conjunction with the PBT keycaps, gasket design and several layers of acoustic foam to produce a soft yet thocky sound — and it sounds like music to my ears. They also require just 30g of force to activate, so they’re very light. In fact, they’re the lightest switches I’ve tested so far! Combine that with adjustable actuation, and you’ve got a keyboard that lets you tailor the typing experience to suit your style.

Thanks to the light 30g of force, my hands didn’t feel fatigued even after a full day of typing. This is excellent because typing is my bread and butter, and a keyboard with heavy switches is a no-go for me.

I adjusted the Q6 HE 8K’s switches’ sensitivity a few times to take three different typing speed tests at 10fastfingers.com. As you can see in the table above, though my accuracy dropped a little bit at 0.5mm sensitivity, my typing speed was the best of the other magnetic keyboards I’ve tested. Because 0.5mm is very light, accidentally touching a key you didn’t mean to press registers unintended keystrokes, and that’s what’s happened here. I’m still very pleased with the results, though.

User-friendly web-based software

To customize the Keychron Q6 HE 8K, all you need to do is head on over to Keychron Launcher, a web-based and extremely user-friendly companion app. I really appreciate that you don’t need to download any proprietary software or bloatware onto your machine to personalize the keyboard.

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Keychron Launcher is well-laid out and signposted, and there are quick explanations for all the customizable aspects of the keyboard. Via Keychron Launcher, you can remap keys, record macros, choose RGB lighting effects and colors, and update the Q6 HE 8K’s firmware. You can also adjust each key’s sensitivity between 0.01mm and 3.35mm, enable Rapid Trigger and Snap Tap, and use Analog Mode, which turns your keyboard’s overall sensitivity into that of a controller (very handy for racing games).

Keychron Q6 HE 8K review: The downs

There isn’t a lot wrong with the Keychron Q6 HE 8K, but it’s important to note that switch choice is limited to just one, the keyboard is wired-only, and it’s expensive.

Wired only

This is less of a con and more of a pre-purchase condition: the Keychron Q6 HE 8K cannot be used wirelessly. There’s no Bluetooth or 2.4GHz dongle accompanying the keyboard, and the only way to use it is via a wired connection. Again, not a flaw, but something to consider if you prefer wireless connectivity. Also, given that this keyboard is probably going to stay put on your desk, and you need to use a USB-C cable to take advantage of the 8,000Hz polling rate, chances are you won’t really miss Bluetooth.

There aren’t many Hall Effect keyboards with 8K polling that can be used wired and wirelessly, but they seem to be on their way, and rest assured that we will be testing them soon. Any 8K polling magnetic keyboard worth its salt comes wired-only, such as the Wooting 80HE ($199), the NuPhy Field75 HE ($169) and the Lemokey L5 HE ($220).

(Very) limited stock switch choice

I probably sound like a broken record to those who have read some of my other Hall Effect keyboard reviews, but here I am, piping up again. The Keychron Q6 HE 8K can be bought with only one set of stock switches, and that’s the Keychron Ultra-Fast Lime magnetics. These are fantastic switches, as I’ve said above, but it would have been nice to have a couple more options for those who want heavier switches, for instance.

While the Q6 HE 8K is hot-swappable, meaning you can change switches without de- and re-soldering them to the PCB, it’s important to note that the board isn’t compatible with Gateron, Jade or other magnetic switches. So, at the time of writing, the Q6 HE 8K is compatible exclusively with the Keychron Ultra-fast Limes, but this might change in the future when Keychron makes more switches in-house.

Expensive (but worth it)

Last but not least, the Keychron Q6 HE 8K isn’t meant for those who are strapped for cash. It retails for $239 at Amazon U.S. / £229 at Keychron U.K. This is the case with all of Keychron’s Q-series decks, so this issue isn’t exclusive to the Q6 HE 8K. Many magnetic keyboards are priced similarly, such as the Lemokey L5 HE ($220) and the Keychron Q3 HE ($239).

But having tested the keyboard — and taking into account that it finally made me good at Counter-Strike 2 — I think it’s well worth the premium. For the price, you get 8,000Hz polling, ultra-responsive customizable switches, Rapid Trigger, Snap Tap, quad-actuation and a build that will stand the test of time.

Keychron Q6 HE 8K review: Verdict

If you’re on the hunt for a powerful gaming keyboard and don’t mind a hefty deck that stays put on your desk, I can’t recommend the Keychron Q6 HE 8K enough. Its super-responsive Ultra-Fast Lime switches are a joy to play and type on, thanks to the adjustable actuation all the way down to 0.01mm. This means that you can tailor each key to suit your style.

For competitive gamers, 8,000Hz polling ensures zero input lag, while Rapid Trigger and quad-actuation are sure to give you the competitive advantage you need to win against rivals. Snap Tap is available, too, which is great for single-player games. Customization is quick and easy via web-based software, while the keyboard itself is easy on the eyes.

Though the lack of wireless connectivity and limited switch choice might feel disappointing for some, this is still a stunning keyboard, offering plenty of features to make up for those shortcomings. As 100% keyboards go, none are better than the Q6 HE 8K.