 This video is brought to you by the Intel Core i7 4770K unlocked processor. If you're a speed freak, add an Intel 3500 series SSD to your Haswell system for a truly enthusiast class experience. Welcome to my unboxing of the flagship of flagships of Corsair keyboards. This is the Vengeance K95, which is a direct replacement for the K90 in terms of feature set, and it brings some compelling new features with it that make it not just a slotted replacement, but I'd say a significant improvement. I mean, I wouldn't have minded if they'd called it the K100, but I guess that sort of breaks the, you know, K and two digits after the numbering scheme that they were going for. But the unfortunate thing about that for Corsairs, they started at 90. They could have easily done a K30, or you know, a K20 to start with, but they started right there at 90, so that left them not a whole lot of room to move on the numbering scheme. So the first thing that's different about the K95 versus the K90, and this was complaint number uno for the K90, was the fact that all the key switches on the K95 are now mechanical. On the K90, the macro keys as well as the F keys along the top of the keyboard used rubber dome switches. In addition to all these macro keys right here, there we go, let's move over. All these macro keys here used rubber dome membrane key switches. All these F keys at the top as well as escape used rubber domes, and these guys right here used rubber domes. Enthusiasts basically went Corsair. We think it's interesting, your philosophy about how you want these ones to feel different, tactile-y so that I can tell what I'm doing when I'm not looking at the keyboard, but we don't care. What we'd like you to do is replace them with mechanical keys. Corsair took that feedback and implemented it with the K95. It is fully mechanical. The next thing that is different about the K95 versus the K90 is that it is in a different color scheme. So you can see that we've got that same blue aluminum backplane that gives the keyboard a very premium look. Did I say blue aluminum? Okay, we've got that same aluminum backplane that gives the keyboard a very, very clean look as well as extreme ruggedness. So Corsair keyboards have almost no flex. You can see how thick that piece of aluminum is that makes up the unibody construction of it that goes all the way down to, here we go, all the way down to the bottom of where the wrist rest attaches and then all the way up to the top. It's very, very rigid. And another thing that Corsair does that's unique is they have an extremely high distance between the bottom of the keycap right here and the top of the backplane. And what this does is it gives them a very strong underglow effect because these keys are individually backlit. So these LEDs are casting light not only through the keys themselves, and you can see there's varying brightness levels, three brightness levels as well as off, but also down on the backplane itself that gives it a very, very, very, very cool effect. This is one of the things that I believe sold Corsair keyboards because it's a very unique look. The next thing is the wrist rest has not been changed much from the previous gen. I really like Corsair's implementation on the wrist rest here. And that is it's different from the K70 where they have done away with the metal screws here at the edges that make it extremely secure as well as I believe less prone to breakage. The plastic clips on the K70 have a pretty strong design, but there's no substitute for these metal thumb screws that are able to attach this in a much more permanent fashion. And even if these broke off, which I don't think they would, they could still be guides and you could still firmly secure it with this. On the bottom of the keyboard, you've got flip out feet right here that are going to allow you to change the elevation slightly as well as rubber feet here, here, here, and here. That'll keep it from slipping around. On the back of the keyboard, we find a single USB pass through. So you can use this for your mouse or for, I don't know, a USB drive or whatever else that you want, as well as a bio switch. This is kind of unique. And the funny thing about the bio switch is Corsair makes no mention of it, no mention here, no mention on the website. So I will explain what it does. It enables better compatibility with different motherboards, particularly ones running legacy biases. This was one of the other complaints that I personally had about the K90 was that it wasn't always compatible with motherboards allowing you to get into the bios if you press to delete in time. So they've got four different profiles here, one, two, four, and eight that will allow you to get into the bios of your motherboard pretty much regardless. So that's a really strong thing. Another carryover from the K90 is the media keys, which I believe are some of the best out there. So you've got stop, back, play pause, and forward, as well as mute and a volume wheel. Volume wheels are much more intuitive and natural for me to use than something like a function hot key up on the F keys themselves. So I love seeing them implemented. That is my favorite way of doing that. Moving on down here, we've got a windows key lock that is also a carryover as well as the brightness adjustment that I showed you guys before. I'm going to put it on the dimmest one just so you guys can see what I'm talking about here and check this out. The keys are individually backlit. They are also individually controllable. Here we go. So you hold this button down and all of a sudden, whoa, what's going on? Only like a bunch of random keys over here on the keyboard are backlit. You can change and backlight whichever keys you desire. So if you wanted to, yeah, there you go. So if you wanted to like spell your name across the keyboard, you could blank out the whole thing. Oh, I have not done this the most effective way, but bear with me here guys. So there you have it. That is my feeble attempt to have the keyboard say my name on it instead of any kind of sort of reasonable pattern. So there's L I N N's tough. U S C. Cool. And then all that you have to do is you press this down, hold her down, and you have effectively changed the mode. So you can switch between the modes by pressing one of these buttons, if I recall correctly. There we go. So by pressing this button, you can go full backlit, not backlit, and then using brightness adjust, you can turn the whole thing off entirely. Very cool stuff. All of the G programmable G1 to G18 keys can be programmed on the fly. You also have three different profile layers for each of them. And that I think is pretty self-explanatory, or you can use Corsair's gaming software in order to enable sort of a bunch of this functionality as well. If you don't prefer to program things on the fly, I think that pretty much wraps it up. Oh, right. And Cherry MX Red. So the K95 is still only available with Cherry MX Red switches, because these are, according to sort of what Corsair would believe, although I'm not a pro gamer. So that's part of the problem. But according to Corsair, for gaming, Cherry MX Reds are still the most optimal key switches because of their extremely light tactile response. So they are very light button presses as well as their linear switch fashion, allowing you to quickly and easily repeat the buttons in a way that you can't really do with the tactile switches like Cherry MX Blues. So while Blues might be more satisfying for typing, this is a gaming keyboard. So Corsair is going, well, you know what? We're going to deliver the best product that we think is most appropriate for gaming. And the typists can get K70s, which are available with other key switches as well. So this particular one, Cherry MX Red. And let's just see if I missed anything else, guys. Don't forget to leave a comment under the video. Let me know what you think of the K95. Let me know what you think of the unboxing of it. Don't forget to like the video and share the video if you liked it. And don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.