Update, 6/8/17, 7:44am PT: The Patriot V770 RGB is now available. You can get it directly from Patriot for $140. We still don't have any additional information on the switch options, but we can confirm that Kailh Red RGB switches are, at least, the primary option.
Original article, 1/17/17, 11:40am PT:
Patriot entered the gaming peripherals market last year with a keyboard, mouse, and headset. It’s now added two more keyboards to the pile.
One is the Viper V770, which we first saw in prototype form last summer at Computex. It’s now polished and ready to ship, and it will serve as a slightly higher-end option for those interested in the Viper V760.
The V770 departs from the V760 in a few ways. It has a left-side vertical bank of extra keys for macros and the like as well as eight physical buttons located above the F keys. There are also several dedicated media buttons across the top right of the keyboard, including a volume roller and three buttons one could describe as “roller paddles,” for additional media controls. The V770 also has RGB-lit bars on either side of the chassis, as well as one across the removable wrist rest. There’s a glowing Viper logo on the wrist rest, too.
It also has an audio jack on the right side and a USB passthrough port on the left. The V760 lacks all of the above save for the USB passthrough port.
However, both the V770 and the V760 have a top plate design, RGB lighting, and enjoy configuration software support.
There’s also a new midrange option, the Viper V730, which shares quite a bit of design language with the V760 but has just red LEDs, not RGB. However, it does not support Patriot’s configuration software. All of the lighting effects and profiles are handled onboard.
All of the above offer Kailh switches--Red (RGB) on the V770 and Brown on the V730. Patriot told us that Cherry MX switch options are a possibility, but the company has not yet made any firm decisions on that either way.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Patriot Viper V770 | Patriot Viper V760 | Patriot Viper V730 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Full-size, 104 keys (plus 5 extra) | Full-size, 104 keys | |
| Switches | Kailh Red | Kailh Brown | |
| Lighting | RGB | Red | |
| Additional Ports | -USB passthrough x1-Audio passthrough x1 | USB passthrough x1 | Unknown |
| Software | Yes | No | |
| Misc. | -5 additional macro keys-8 additional hardware buttons-Volume and multimedia rollers-5 lighting profiles | -5 lighting profiles |