So, I know some others have them, and I wanted to see who else did. I just ordered my first one, aside from the stuff I used in my younger years. There's so many more options out there than there was, but it took me forever to decide which I wanted due to the price premium.

Might want to read this article before you read much more if you don't know much about mechanical keyboards.

I'm currently using this keyboard:

http://steelseries.com/products/keyboards/steelseries-merc-stealth

It's a good keyboard, but I'm tired of having the shared usage space of the home, pg up, pg dwn, etc keys with the numpad. It doesn't seem inconvenient at first, but after having to press the damn num lock button a hundred times a day and it quickly gets that way. I've really enjoyed it for the years I've had it, and it's pretty unique with it's key layout. It was originally a Zboard product, and mine is an original Zboard. However, for all of Steel Series greatness, they were lazy when they bought the company and barely bothered to update the software. It works, but only half as well as it should, and even some common bugs that have been apparent for over a year have just been ignored.

So, time to upgrade. I've been looking at various mechanical keyboards for nearly a month now. There is a large selection of them now, but few with the features I need. You can find basic, fully customizable ones with full N-key rollover (press every key on the board at once and have it register) at http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/ . You can pick the type of switches, the color of each key, etc for 139.99 or a semi customizable one for 129.99 . However, that's where the features end. Those keyboards along with many others, such as the steelseries, and das keyboards have no software support for macros. So, you get a good keyboard, but without the features I wanted.

In the end it was really a choice between a very few mechanical keyboards for me. I wanted Cherry-MX brown switches, which have a tactile feedback, but no audible click, back lighting, and macro support.

I originally was leaning towards the new 2013 BlackWidow from Razer, but turns out it only comes with the blue switches. I think those would be too loud for me. I could have went with the older stealth version, or waited for the new one, but the older one is on backorder and it was $20 more than the one I ended up with.

So, anyhow, to put an end to a long story, I ended up with the Cooler Master Storm Trigger. It's very similar to the Razer BlackWidow Stealth edition. It has all the features I listed above, plus a removable usb connection, a 2 port usb hub that can have a power adapter ( doesn't come with the power adapter, but I don't need the hub anyway ), 6-key rollover, on board memory for macros, on the fly macro recording, five dedicated macro keys with software that allows any key to have a macro, and a wrist rest.

It was the best reviewed mechanical keyboard with all the features I needed for the price (128.99 from newegg after shipping) . I should have it by this weekend, and I can give you some more details. I'm hoping for the best from a company that normally produces power supplies, cases, and fans.

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=3089

BOB DAMN! While it looks great, I refuse to spend that much money. I have an old school Microsoft Natural Keyboard on the desktop in the house. It works and the kids haven't complained about it yet.

Yeah, it's a crap load for a keyboard, but pretty much all the mechanical keyboards are $100+ . Plus, I just found this. I have no idea how this pertains to my usage of the keyboard, but maybe just in case I get mad and toss it at a wall.

That's a badass keyboard. Wireless, ability to push however many buttons you want without 'lockout' from pushing too many on one section, and them all registering, and no loud buttons, are what I would want in a keyboard. Even mouses, I don't like the loud clickiness of.

Do they even make wireless mechanical keyboards?

EDIT: Ah, I see it has USB ports on the back rather than a built in cable, so you could get a USB wireless adapter for it. That's cool.

Yeah. I don't think I'd want a wireless gaming keyboard, but everything else is pretty awesome. It's also not completely silent, but you can buy o rigs to quiet it even more.

Regardless, I'm excited. I rush ordered it so I'll actually get it tomorrow. I'm excited. Probably the last piece of hardware I'll buy before I upgrade my CPU and motherboard.

So, I've had this for a bit now. I wanted to give it some time before I wrote anything else. I LOVE it! The noise, as to be expected, is pretty high, but nothing that distracts from gaming. I would suggest these particular keys though, as I couldn't imagine the other louder ones. You could also add the O ring kit to soften the noise. For typing, it's absolutely fantastic, response time feels great. I prefer it so much over the non mechanical keyboards, and I enjoy it more the more I type with it.

For gaming, well, it's a hard comparison coming from a keyboard with dedicated gaming keys, but I'm getting use to the WASD cluster again. Again, for gaming the response time is great. You don't have to fully depress the key, so you can get a lot of action presses in quick. I can press any combination of 6 keys at once, so I have yet to have a key not respond when I needed it to. The macros are great as well. You can't make them as long as I'd like, but still useful in the right games. Now, one other thing I REALLY like. Once you setup your macros and all that it saves to the keyboard. So, you can then disable the keyboard software. You don't have to have it running in the background all the time. Which is a pretty nice feature.

Anyhow, as far as mechanical keyboards go, this is my first gaming one. However, I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for one.

Now build me one that's powered by steam! (The Software and the gas)

I'm not surprised you ended up loving it. I bought one kind of on a whim as well six months or so back, and I don't think I could ever go back to a normal one.

They just announced a remake of the starwars rig by Razer for everyone .... think it was priced at $299 though.

299? Ouch. I'm typing on my other keyboard downstairs, and it's just not the same. Glad I made the purchase.

Yeah, other than the lcd screen that looks really cool, i don't think any of the doodads it has really interest me... but then again, I game mostly on my console anyway.

There is a down side I've found with this keyboard. Since it has on board memory etc it has a long initialization time. Which means I have to use a different keyboard to get into my bios.

That could be problamatic, especially if you wanted to use safe mode.

It initializes fast enough to access the windows boot options, but not fast enough to get into the bios. Normally not an issue, but it can be annoying. Worse for people who don't keep extra keyboards lying around.

Hmmmm.... Does a motherboard with built-in bluetooth initialize with bios, or does it wait for windows?

I would think it waits, but my wireless USB keyboard works. Well, sometimes.

Picked up the same keyboard this week and love it. Haven't tested the BIOS thing on my PC to see if it makes a difference for me, but I have lots of cheap keyboards laying around so it shouldn't be an issue.

Awesome! Glad I didn't steer you wrong.