Roccat Suora FX Keyboard Review: Less Frame, More Color

Experience and Final Thoughts

The Roccat Suora FX is a different kind of “no frills” keyboard as it offers quite a bit more beyond the basics. It has some secondary function shortcuts available via the Fn key but like most Roccat products, it truly shines (not just figuratively but literally as well) when the Roccat Swarm driver is installed. Even without it, users can cycle between four presets and adjust brightness but after installation, the backlight is extremely customizable. It is not all just eye-candy either since the buttons can be re-assigned as well.  Unlike other Roccat products which use their Easy-shift option, the Roccat Suora FX utilizes the Game Mode feature which is a toggle mode for secondary keyboard reassigned functions. This is equally powerful in its own right, allowing users to even set macros from a single key. Like the LED option, the key assignment option is made significantly more powerful when the Swarm software is installed since it opens up a world of options for users.

Having the Game mode function, macro recording capability and having full NKRO via per-key diode implementation gives the Roccat Suora FX the requisite gaming credentials. Using standard 1.25x bottom row keycap sizes make finding custom keycaps a cinch. Coupled with the highly customizable LED and easy disassembly, it is quite modder friendly as well. The fact that its switch housing is exposed makes the illumination brighter than most backlit keyboards due to the transparent switch housing. The frameless design is a good space saving option, although some might lament the lack of of wrist rest, this just opens up room for further customization (a simple wood block or foat cut to size would suffice, very easy mod to do). The price is inline with most Cherry MX clone varieties at $99~109. What really gives the SuoraFX significantly more value compared to others is in the software, which is highly recommended for everyone to install (something that can’t be said for most peripehral manufacturer software).