It’s my daily driver and the optical sound-dampened pre-lubed keyboard I compare every keyboard against. With ROG LX linear optical switches, an impressive build quality, combined with slick styling, lovely RGB lighting and PBT doubleshot key caps, it’s an absolute king at the best of times, and at $80, well, it’s a hard argument to ignore.
Key specs: Full-size | ROG RX pre-lubed linear optical | PBT doubleshot | per-key RGB | sound-dampened | wired USB-CView Deal
You know I’ve tested a lot of mechanical keyboards over the years. In fact, I started my clicky switch love way back in 2013, with the OG Corsair K70 Vengeance and a Cherry MX Red switch, but nothing, and I mean nothing, has come close to the Asus ROG Strix Scope II RX for me. Even with its silly and ridiculous name, that seems to grow ever longer. I reviewed it for another publication in about 2024, and was just blown away by the build quality, the switches, the sound dampening, the fact Asus had pre-lubed everything to death. And it was clean too, stupidly so, it looked and still looks gorgeous. I set up the RGB once, two years ago, and I haven’t changed it since.
Back then, it averaged $120 on retail. Today, Newegg’s got it listed with a 33% discount at $80 (with the promo code: FTTF283).
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Like complete honest truth with you, I actually recently took a look at Corsair’s Makr Pro 75 line as well. A similarly sound-dampened premium pre-lubed affair, albeit with Hall effect switches, and even though I enjoyed it, I just ended up gravitating straight back to this beauty. The Makr Pro 75 now sits diligently on a shelf again in its box, whereas my slightly dusty ROG Strix Scope II hogs the limelight.
I could wax lyrical about it all day. The build quality on it is exceptional. It’s not particularly heavy by modern standards, and there’s no nonsense marketing hype either. I see so many manufacturers just adding layers of foam, brace plates, gaskets, for the sake of it, so they can make the numbers bigger on the product page, or tell you exactly how each spring is specifically chosen based on its acoustic time signature or some bs, and it just feels unnecessary. All of it adds extra cost at diminishing returns, and we end up paying the price. You have to draw a line somewhere.
Future / Techradar
Future / Techradar
Future / Techradar
That’s why the Scope II 96 wireless sat at the top of our best gaming keyboard list for so long as well, and why its wired sibling packs in all the same traits, albeit at a slightly larger form factor, and still dominates two years on.
Millions of words I’ve typed on this thing, over years, spillages, food, dirt, dust, debris, sweat, blood, the lot. It’s endured it all and held up against all of it. Not a single switch failure. Not a single moment where I’ve gone “man, I wish I could try something new”. If that ain’t high praise, I don’t know what is, and when it costs damn near a third as much as the big boys’ latest bounties, well, if I lived in the US it’d already be in my basket (as a back-up, you know, ya boy’s got needs).
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