Roccat is building its own mechanical key switches now

The world of mechanical key switches just got a little bit bigger with the introduction of the Titan, designed in-house "in its entirety by Roccat," the gaming peripheral maker announced today.

This is Roccat's first mechanical key switch, which it also says it developed in collaboration with TTC. We take that to mean that Roccat designed the switch to its own specifications, and then sourced production to TTC, though we're seeking clarity on that from Roccat and will update this article once we hear back.

So why design yet another mechanical switch when there are so many options already? According to Roccat, it set out to solve the "common problem" of contact bouncing.

"With each key stroke, the switch tends to bounce or chatter on the electrical contact, cycling rapidly between being on and off. This can result in a single key stroke being recognized as multiple, or even not being recognized at all. Keyboard firmware is typically designed to account for this and features a delay in reading the signal until it settles. The Titan switch tackles this problem by utilizing high quality mechanical components that bring the physical bounce of the switch to an absolute minimum," Roccat explains.

In doing so, Roccat said it was able to design firmware that takes advantage of the reduced bounce rate to reliably read key stroke signals much earlier after actuation. The claim is that the Titan is 20 percent faster than the competition.

Compared to other switches, Roccat describes the Titan as being closest in feel to brown types (like the Cherry MX Brown). However, Roccat shorted the actuation point from 2mm to 1.8mm, and reduced the travel distance from 4mm to 3.6mm.

Similar to brown switches, the Titan offers tactile feedback, and is also quiet. And as an added twist, Roccat developed a special transparent housing that it claims reinforces the switch, ultimately making it sturdier.

"It gives the keys a solid feel and eliminates wobble, even when keys are pressed aggressively or bottomed out. It also has the added benefit of protecting the inner part of the switch from dust and making it easy to maintain," Roccat says.

As to how it performs and ultimately compares to other key switches on the market, we'll find out soon enough—Roccat is planning to debut the Titan in an upcoming keyboard that will be announced at Computex on June 5.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).