The humble gaming keyboard is no longer quite so humble. We’ve come a long way from the bad old days of nought but rubber dome switches as far as the eye could see, or single colour LED backlights, or complete Cherry switch dominance. Today sees a vibrant keyboard market that has seen high-end mechanical switches become everyday and affordable tech, and once-enthusiast keeb features filtering into the mainstream.
Hot-swappable switches were barely a thought but a few years ago, and no-one outside of the very enthusiastic enthusiast keyboard community would have considered lubing up individual key switches before. But both are now very much part of standard PC gaming hardware groupthink.
You have the likes of Razer and Asus trying to muscle in on the cottage industry of bespoke gaming keyboards, and established brands such as Ducky releasing complete DIY kits to build your own board from the ground up.
And there have been some genuinely outstanding tippy-tappers released this year, too. And we’ve had to pick just three for our nominations for the best gaming keyboard of the year—but all are potentially worthy of the title.
Best gaming keyboard 2023: the nominees
The winner of the PC Gamer Hardware Award for the best gaming keyboard will be announced on New Year’s Eve. It’s all to play for, and any one of these three is completely deserving of the crown.