Unit sales of graphics cards dropped from over 20 million per quarter a little over a decade ago to around 10 to 12 million per quarter nowadays. While average selling prices of these boards increased tangible, makers of graphics adapters are very inclined to offer other types of products. PowerColor was among a few suppliers focused solely on graphics cards, until this week when it launched its first keyboard.
To build its first mechanical gaming keyboard, PowerColor teamed up with two renowned specialists: Kailh, a maker of switches, and Ducky, a maker of keyboards as well as ultra-durable high-quality keycaps. The PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF RGB is a compact 65% keyboard that uses Kailh's Box White (tactile and clicky with a 3.6-mm travel) or Brown (tactile, but not clicky) mechanical switches (rated for up to 50 million presses) with doubleshot side-printed PBT keycaps and is made by Ducky.
(Image credit: PowerColor)
The compact keyboard has five rows (meaning there are no F keys and no numpad) and an addressable LED inside each key. The unit can record macros and has an Fn key to access F keys, volume controls, and control things like brightness.
(Image credit: PowerColor)
Since the product is designed for gamers, PowerColor bundles it with 10 additional red keycaps to make them visually distinguishable from other 10 keys. Also, there are four more black replacement keycaps (for Esc, Del, PgUp, and PgDnkeys) and one replacement keycap for the space key. To make it easier to replace keys, PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF RGB ships with a keycap puller. The keyboard connects to the PC using a replaceable USB Type-C to Type-A cable.
(Image credit: PowerColor)
PowerColor's first keyboard primarily addresses fans of the company with its unique style. To that end, it is not particularly surprising that the company teamed up with a contract maker of keyboards as this is essentially an experimental product that will reveal the potential of the PowerColor brand on the market of gaming peripherals. If Tul, the owner of the brand, finds the keyboard a success, expect other products of this kind to emerge in the future.
(Image credit: PowerColor)
The PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF RGB is available immediately from the company's resellers for $109. The first clients to get the product will also get PowerColor's signature Red Devil Keycap (valued at $49.99) featuring a standing Red Devil logo carved with aluminum anode technology.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
A upside of the PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF model is its combination of an ISO layout with Kailh box switches (though I'm uncertain if this configuration has been on offer before). Perhaps more importantly, the PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF retains the gorgeous translucent keycaps of earlier models in the One 2 SF line while the new Ducky line of models so far has no shine-throughs. In view of the One 2 SF's brilliant RGB lighting, this is a huge plus of the older One 2 SF generation in my eyes. These advantages may make the PowerColor x Ducky One 2 SF interesting to more than just collectors who are after the PowerColor keycaps and the red bottom case.
