Gadgetory

mechanical keyboards all the rage as gamers these days and picking one up will cost you a pretty penny especially if you're after the golden standard Cherry MX switches finding a model equipped with these switches that's more than simply bare-bones or attend careless design under $100 is a hard ask especially for hoping for something cool with at least some bells and whistles well this is exactly the slot that Cougars attack x3 is trying to fill coming in at just $90 it's priced very competitively and can be had in a choice of all four common cherry switch varieties blue red black or brown but at what feature or design expense does this appealing pricing come out let's take a closer look and find out the design is much in line with this bigger brother the Cougar 600k which I might add had to be my daily driver for some time it features almost the same key layout there's extra functionality in terms of alternative functions across the F keys however dedicated brightness windows lock and media control keys have been omitted the attack x3 does feature dedicated volume controls however but also forgoes the dedicated polling rate toggles all the kids that are missing can be found in the affirmation alternative functions of the F keys across the top of the keyboard the layout of the keyboard is standard NSI aside from the bottom row summing up honestly was not a fan of its the lack of a windows key at the bottom left its instead being replaced with the function key to activate the top row functions which is useful I suppose however that bottom left Windows key is the one I use religiously is there would be a long and painful adjustment period for me if I was gonna start using this keyboard regularly that's just not something I'd personally be prepared to do also in line with the more premium 600 K and 700 K models before it is Kyrgyz brushed aluminium backing plate which is a nice touch and a more affordable keyboard I like the look this gives and with the keys lit up it offers a nice reflective globe lighting itself is a bright red color only and you can switch between lighting modes with the f4 keys alternative function but those they'd like to play around with outlining configuration there aren't a ton of options in fact there's five you can increase decrease the brightness at 33% intervals set to breathing or turn the lights completely off this is pretty basic stuff but lighting aficionados are probably more likely to pick up a model with full RGB lighting anyway and it is a step up from the limited backlighting of the 600 cave aside from that the design is rather basic there's nervous rest or they can attach one of cougars wrist rests as the right notches therefore one there are no buttons along the top shelf either and in its wrists Restless form this all results in a relatively small overall footprint which may appeal to the frugal traveling accountant gamer who likes to have their numpad - very sturdy and rubberized legs give the keyboard additional lift if you need it aside from that there isn't much else to say the overall look and feel the keyboard exceeds its price point in my opinion if you'll Salomon you pick it up nothing rattles the brushed aluminium especially gives it a nice sleek overall look probably the only other major feature I'd missed is having a USB pass-through this is something I find really useful but for a lot of people that's not going to be a deal-breaker the USB cable it does have is a thick long and braided one which is a nice touch at this price point - on the technical side of things the attack x3 is equipped with everything pro games would need and casual noobs like myself don't need but one for high performance including one millisecond response time and key rollover onboard memory to store your profiles and of course the preferred Cherry MX switches Cougars uix software system is lightweight but certainly powerful enough to suit most gamers the download weighs in at a bloat free five point five megabytes and after a quick installation the attack extreme is detected immediately within the software you can quickly set up three different modes which can be switched between on the flyer with the function keys directly on the keyboard itself within these three modes you can set up and save different key assignments macros adjust the polling rate and change the repeat rate to the lighting controls the limited as mentioned and you can only really turn on or off each lighting step lastly you can also setup different profiles for specific games and you which is a good inclusion for the software overall the cougar attack x3 is a pretty solid option at its price point of just $90 obviously the inclusion of Cherry MX switches is a big plus being able to get in in each of the four cherry options is great too for me the lack of a bottom left Windows key and USB pass-through was a bummer however I was impressed with the overall build quality and look at the keyboard the Cougar 600k can now be have for just $97.00 on Amazon and honestly based on features that would be my preferred choice although it does forego the full backlighting for the attack x3 I'll post the Amazon buy links to both in the description below let me know what you think about the attack x3 in the comments is it one you'll be considering I'm your host Matt signing off and I'll see you guys next time