For some reason the top LED on my right stick turns itself on while the controller is charging very often. It used to only go red but for some reason now it's turning purple as well brightness changes seemingly at random while it's charging as well. Controller is a ultimate 2 wireless
https://imgur.com/a/EvKgS0A somehow there seems to be 37gb of files that are just completely impossible to see. is this normal for windows 11 or is there something wrong with my system?
Disclaimer: This unit was given to me directly by ATK under the condition I’d write a review within 7 days of receiving the unit. Because of this short window I was unable to fully test battery life. I will include more details about both battery life and sensor/wireless performance later on, where I’ll be doing my best to copy TechPowerUp’s mouse testing with a Viper V4 Pro as the baseline. I was not given any restrictions or guidelines other than the 7 day review window.
SHAPE/COATING/WEIGHT
The shape is a medium size primarily claw grip focused shape, with fairly flat sides and a back heavy hump. The front tapers outwards very slightly while the center (near the back side button and around the sensor) tapers inwards slightly. This means that, while your pinky and ring finger sit in a fairly stable position, your thumb will be pushed slightly upwards and away from the mouse pad when held near the back side button. While I’ve actually quite liked this quirk because it prevents my fingernail from getting caught in the mouse pad, I could understand that some people might not like it as much. The link below is a comparison between the ATK zero, Razer Viper v3/4, and EndgameGear XM2 shapes.
The coating is a fairly grippy matte coating. It attracts far less fingerprints than some other performance coatings out there, but still shows some small marks after use. With dry hands it’s just as grippy as my (white) Viper V4 or XM2.
My hands usually are quite dry, however due to a heatwave currently going on I was able to test both the ATK zero and a Viper V4 with sweaty hands for the first time. The zero here far outperformed my Viper V4, remaining very grippy under slightly sweaty conditions.
The mouse includes a full set of diamond pattern grip tape (buttons, sides, top and back) which is decent. The material isn’t the most grippy I've ever used, but the fact that the top and back grips are also included is a nice touch.
Weight comes in at 45 grams and is perfectly balanced. This is within ATK’s advertised range of 44+-3 grams. For this size the weight is excellent.
BUTTONS
The main buttons use ATK’s own custom optical switch. The click actuation feels very snappy and light. The post click (after activation) is very short and heavy though which doesn’t give you the cushioned feel that some other click implementations give. I didn’t have any noticeable button wobble on my unit and click feel was even between the left and right click.
The side buttons, although they feel very snappy, are quite small and fairly high up on the mouse. This means that you need to lift your thumb in order to press them rather than rolling your thumb upwards, which in my opinion is not optimal in game for aim consistency. Overall the side buttons feel great, but I would've preferred them being slightly larger than the current version.
The scroll wheel click is very light and feels nice to press. I've tested for accidental scrolls or releases while keeping the wheel pressed (like on the superlight) and was unable to replicate this behavior on the ATK Zero. Overall the scroll wheel click is excellent.
With the debounce filter set to 0ms I haven't noticed any double clicking, slam clicking, or accidental presses on any of the buttons.
SCROLL WHEEL
The scroll wheel is a standard TTC Gold wheel. I personally prefer very tactile steps on my scroll wheels and this one is a little bit too smooth for my liking, but overall it’s a good wheel. The wheel itself has a textured rubber layer and sits completely straight. The wheel also the smallest amount of side to side wobble of any mouse I've every used which is very impressive.
BUILD QUALITY
There was no flex around the entire shell and, as noted above, the buttons and wheel have absolutely no wobble. My unit did however develop a tiny amount of creaking when pressed at a very specific spot on the right side of the mouse. For me this was not noticeable during use, but if you hold the mouse towards the rear it could be an issue.
CABLE
The charging cable on the mouse is quite heavy and not the most flexible, however because battery life is very good on the mouse I don’t really see it as a big issue.
FEET
The feet are a standard white dye PTFE. They are rounded but still feel slightly scratchy on my pad. This is likely because they are fairly hard which does help with wear, but doesn’t have the optimal feeling for mouse feet. The mouse comes with both a set of regular replacement feet and a set of (8) dot feet of the same material. I really like the fact that ATK gives you dot feet as an option out of the box but I would've preferred if they used a slightly softer and more pure PTFE material (similar to most aftermarket skates). Additionally it would be interesting to, instead of the regular PTFE feet, include a set of UHMW dot feet.
A small thing to note is that the bottom of the mouse is very slightly uneven (i would estimate about a 0.1mm difference between the back left and back right side). I’m not sure if this is due to the mouse feet not being flat or the mouse base itself being uneven. This overall isn’t that much of an issue on my soft pad since the part that sticks out will slightly sink into the pad, but it could be an issue for some hard pad users, especially with dot skates.
SENSOR AND WIRELESS
As noted above I'll do my full performance testing at a later date but for now I’ve not run into any major performance issues with the mouse. Tracking is fine on both my cloth pad and my hard desk and no LOD issues can be observed. There’s no smoothing by default and both 8k and 1k polling seem completely stable. During my testing I did note an odd 5ms poll in MouseTester happening fairly frequently, but I've confirmed that this also happens on my Viper V4, so it’s not related to ATK’s wireless solution. My current theory is that Windows broke something with its latest update, which included its new “low latency profile”, changes to the USB3 stack, and changes to the HID stack. These 5ms polls were not happening before this update on my Viper V4 so I'm fairly sure this is related to the windows update. I haven’t tested other polling rates yet but I’d expect similar results.
BATTERY LIFE
As noted above I’ll include more detailed battery life testing at a later date. The battery percentage in software was not quite accurate yet during my testing which is very common on new mice and can usually be fixed by doing a full charge-drain cycle. But for now ATK’s battery life numbers of 160-180 hours on 1k polling and 30-35 hours on 8k polling seem like they would be accurate to me. This is a lot better than most older mice on the market, but is on par with most mice using a nordic 54 series MCU.
In case you’re using this mouse for work or light web browsing, lower polling rates and a lower power mode called “Basic mode” can both be selected in the software, which can massively extend battery life. A competitive MAX mode can also be selected, which increases performance by an unnoticeable amount, but massively reduces battery life. I’d recommend leaving this mode turned off.
RECOMMENDED SETTINGS:
Low power (office): 500-1000hz, Basic mode (tracking)
gaming: 2000-8000hz, ATK Shard competitive firmware (tracking), 0ms click filter, 2-3 minute sleep timer.
SOFTWARE
I am slightly conflicted on ATK’s software. While functionally it’s great, it lacks in terms of localization. Some parts are very clearly machine translated, and some parts are not translated at all (instead appearing in Chinese). While this is annoying it’s definitely fixable with a future update, and I had no issues finding any settings within the software. If you’re unsure of a specific setting I’d recommend switching to the web version and your browser's built in translation tool.
The software supports multiple on board profiles with full macro support and key remapping. Both the web and standalone app version work flawlessly from my experience. I’ve also personally had no issues using the standalone app to update my mouse firmware, but a second USB-c cable is required for both firmware updates and dongle pairing. I would also recommend not using any ultra flexible/low shielding cables for doing these firmware updates just to be safe.
RECOMMENDATION
Overall would I recommend this mouse? At its current price of $59 (solid shell) or $69 (transparent shell) it comes in at nearly half the price as similar options, while being better in some aspects as well. It’s very light weight, performs decently well, has a good shape, and has very good battery life. The slightly scratchy feet can easily be replaced with a $5 set of aftermarket feet and, even with that additional cost, you’ll still end up with a cheaper mouse than most of its alternatives of the same quality. The only real downsides I can think of are the fact that there is a slight bit of wobble and a tiny bit of creaking towards the rear.
Overall it’s an great option for someone with medium sized hands that is looking for a very lightweight mouse.
Preface
Before i start this review i do want to mention that i've purchased this board with my own money and all opinions are my won. I also specifically bought the cheaper version with ABS keycaps, since i intended to swap the keycap set myself. Because of this i will not be talking about the keycaps specifically. I have also been using the keyboard for over a yeah and a half now.
Intro
The K70 Pro TKL is a €190,- (currently on sale for €150,-) Hall Effect keyboard by corsair. The board comes with an included wrist rest and 8k polling capable rubber cable. Some of the promotional materials for this keyboard show it with a braided cable, however this is not actually included with the board so please be aware.
Design
As far as the design goes i was actually pleasantly surprised. The board doesn't have an overly gamerly look to it like some other boards do, it has a fairly neutral font on the keycaps that's easy to read, and doesn't really have any noticeable branding on it. The Corsair logo on the right side of the board blends almost perfectly into the aluminum top plate, the K70 branding on the side is very minimal and can't really be noticed during use. The only noticeable branding is on the ICUE button and the detachable wrist rest.
The wrist rest is actually quite nice. It's a very soft wrist rest with a textured grippy rubber surface. It magnetically attatches itself to the keyboard, but it unfortunately too small for me to properly use when actually attatched. The best way to use this wrist rest is to have it sitting about a centimeter away from the board in order to compensate for it's small size, which is unfortunate.
Build Quality
The build quality on this board is kind of a mixed bag. The keyboard has a decent weight to it (around 1kg) and has 4 rubber feet that do a decent job at preventing it from sliding around your desk, but the placement of these feet does mean you'll have a tiny bit of flex around the middle of the keyboard when pushing down hard. Overall this is a little bit unfortunate because it could've easily been fixed by adding two cheap rubber feet on the center of the board in addition to the already existing 4 corner feet. These extra feet are already present on the wrist rest, which has no flex at all.
The plastic sides on the board have a very slight amount of creaking on the front, left and right side when pressed which is not noticeable during use, however, the back side of the board has significant creaking and popping when pressed in certain points. This usually isn't noticeable during use, but becomes an issue when moving around the board or trying to unplug the cable. the last thing to be aware of with these plastic sides is that the wrist rest will, over time, create a few smooth patches around the front of your board because of constant slight rubbing of the magnets. I think you can prevent this by simply placing a small bit of tape over the magnets which causes the tape to wear down instead of the keyboard case, but i can't confirm this currently.
Switches and Sound
The K70 Pro TKL features two different types of switches, the MGX Hyperdrive (Magnetic) and MLX Plasma (Mechanical, Linear). I'll mostly be talking about the Hyperdrive (Magnetic) switches here because they're used on most common keys and are the main draw for this board. As far as the MLX Plasma (Mechanical, Linear) switch goes, all i can say is that they've got slightly less wobble, have a slightly smoother travel, and have a deeper and more quiet sound than their magnetic counterparts, but the actual switch feel remains mostly the same in terms of initial and bottom out force. Because of this i don't really see the mixing of switches as a major problem, but some boards from other brands include full magnetic switches on all keys within the same price range if that's of interest to you. Also, while the magnetic switches can technically be hotswapped, i would not recommend it because the mechanical switches are soldered in place.
MGX Hyperdrive switches feature a 55-30g force range and 4mm total travel. They feature a clear top housing with a fairly decent RGB diffuser on the top, overall RGB shine through here is good. As far as the actual key feeling goes they're unfortunately quite mediocre compared to some other options on the market. The switches can have a bit of scratchiness to them, especially when pressed down slowly, and have some fairly significant stem wobble. The wobble is significantly worse on my more commonly used keys (wasd), so i do think this is at least slightly related to wear over time, left to right wobble is also significantly worse than to top to bottom wobble. As far as consistency goes i can say that they're pretty consistent with maybe a slightly lower bottom out force required for my most used keys, again likely due to a bit of wear over time. Compared to other stock switches from large brands like Razer or Logitech these are absolutely fine, but against some of the better switch brands they definitely lose out.
As far as sound goes they are about as loud as some of the old Cherry switches. They're also quite high pitch which is noticeable through headphones, which is a bit unfortunate. The stabilizers vary greatly in sound between keys and i would recommend that, if you end up getting this keyboard, you lube them yourself for a better sound and greater consistency. The sound dampening foam inside the board does a good job at eliminating any resonance, but does unfortunately very little to actually dampen and reduce the sound of the switches.
Software and Features
ICUE, as a config software, is kind of a mixed bag. Let me start with the positives: there are a large selection of lighting effects, all keys can be adjusted individually, including actuation point and rapid trigger settings, profiles can be synced to the cloud, software and firmware updates are easy, and you can even get email notifications for when a new firmware version is available if you wish. The board can also be used entirely without the software running with up to 5 on-board profiles, which include lighting effects and key settings.
The keyboard has almost all features you’d expect from a hall effect keyboard, including rapid trigger, SOCD, multiple actions per key, separate actuation and reset points and quick profile switching. The only feature it's missing is controller emulation which isn't really useful to me anyway.
Now the bad: there's a few minor issues that i have like turning on SOCD overriding RGB effects on active keys as an indicator (can't be disabled) or the game mode settings being essential useless. None of them are significant enough to ruin my experience with the board, but combined they become quite annoying.
The real issue with the software are the bugs. ICUE has some known issues that are very frustrating, like the software completely uninstalling itself for some users when the software tries to update itself, but I'll focus on the two issues that gave me the biggest issues. 1. I’ve had an issue where trying to save a profile to the on board memory didn't want to properly complete and, after 5 minutes of waiting, i decided to just unplug the thing in hopes it would resolve something (software wouldn't close while trying to save to board so that was not an option). Doing this completely bricked my board, and i only got it functioning again after guessing correctly how to factory reset the board (the manual had incorrect instructions for doing this). The factory reset removed all on board profiles i had saved, which cost me a while to set back up, but that leads me to the next issue. 2. When saving profiles to the board it will sometimes randomly forget details about it's reset point and rapid trigger setting on other on board profiles. I discovered this after having unusually slow key releases where i would have to fully top out the switch for it to reset. The only way to fix this is to just keep changing and saving your actuation and rapid trigger settings to the board until you hit the jackpot and all your profiles work correctly. With 2 profiles this is manageable, with 3 it becomes annoying and with all 5 profiles filled it becomes nearly impossible to get the board to function properly. Corsair is aware of this issue and has been since april 2025 due to a bug report by me, which the software team confirmed and reassured me would be fixed. It has not been fixed to this day.
Performance
I can be very short here. The board is not the quickest out there and has a pretty significant top and bottom deadzone on all magnetic keys. It's also not as precise as some other Hall Effect boards (0.1mm steps where some boards have 0.001mm steps) but i do not think this is relevant in any way. I do not see an actual use case where an actuation point or rapid trigger step of less than 0.1mm is necessary or useful in any way. I have manually re calibrated evey key to see if i could improve the deadzones slightly, however there seems to not really be any improvement.
Final Verdict
While the board does not commit one of two cardinal sins of Hall Effect boards (No profile switching/single profile and Bad software/settings), it does commit multiple minor sins (mix of switches, annoying software issues, static indicators that overwrite RGB effects, startup time between switching polling rates, and a borderline useless "game mode"), and Corsairs inability to fix any bugs causes me to lose any hope this will ever be improved. While this might've been a decent option at some point for people that didn't have access to (or the funds for) a more expensive wooting board, it does not make any sense to get this keyboard in the current market. Plenty of budget options exist for those short on cash, and for the same price (or less) you can find multiple brands that have boards that both perform and feel better. Overall i would advise against purchasing this keyboard and i'd recommend anyone interested to look at options for other brands.
Thank you for reading.
it's been 6 months and 23 days now since patch 11.08 and i don't think the game has been in a healthy state ever since. not only have we now had back to back meta's of extremely overpowered duelist, but also a huge rise in shotgun use and far lower variety in strats. every round feels like a deathball into full retake on site. i don't think i've seen a proper default or hard anker on site work out and we only really see defender aggression on half buy rounds (because if you're aggressive on the wrong site of the map you're just screwed on the retake).