ASUS TUF Gaming K3 Keyboard Review

A Closer Look

The ASUS TUF Gaming K3 is a really nice keyboard, and it’s not really a big departure from what one would expect of a keyboard either. The first thing I really noticed is the overall quality of it. This being a TUF product, it does feel, well, tough, and it has a weight of quality about it.

It’s surprisingly compact for a full-size keyboard too, with an extremely minimal bezel. Despite this, it still feels perfectly rigid, and that’s likely due to that gorgeous aluminium top panel giving it a lot of added strength.

Everything is finished in a dark black too, the keycaps are darker than most, and it looks pretty stealthy with the black anodized aluminium. There are a few little tricks hidden on the keyboard though, such as the profile switches on the first set of numbers here.

There are some basic multimedia controls up on the top row too.

There’s also basic volume controls here too, of course, all of the buttons are accessible via the Fn-Shift button.

The LED indicators are located above the arrow keys, all pretty standard stuff, but it’s all nicely presented.

The arrow keys themselves allow you to make quick changes to the lighting modes, as well as the overall brightness. You can do a lot more in the desktop software of course, but for quick changes, this is perfect and doesn’t require any software.

The branding is really nice on this keyboard too, with the TUF Gaming logo in the top right. It’s got that digital camo lines pattern on it, which is seen across all TUF Gaming Alliance hardware.

Of course, this being a full-size keyboard, you get a full numberpad too. Again, no big surprises here.

The keyboard chassis is fairly slim, but that does mean the switches are mounted slightly above it. That’s no bad thing though, as it’ll allow a lot more vivid RGB underlighting effects.

As we’ve seen in other ASUS keyboards, this one uses Kailh switches. We’ve got the red ones here, which are fully RGB lit. I used to hate Kailh red switches, they used to suck, but honestly, this last couple of years I can’t really tell the difference between them and Cherry, and I test a LOT of keyboards with both.

Around the back, you’ll see the cable connection point. It is hard-wired, but at least the mount and braiding look very sturdy.

There’s a small USB port here, allowing you to hook up your mouse, headset, webcam or whatever really. It’s not for charging your phone though, so keep that in mind.

Wow, look at that underside! I mean… it’s very nice and all, but it does seem a little excessive for something you’ll see maybe once.

There are durable rubber grips all over, so it won’t slide around your desk.

I like that one says TUF and the other says Gaming, they could have used the same grip twice, but they really went to town on the little details for this keyborad.