The keyboard of the Large Pixel Collider

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We've picked a keyboard that can handle the gaming demands of our supercomputing overlord, the Large Pixel Collider .

Last time we picked new hardware for the LPC, it was our favorite gaming mouse , the Razer DeathAdder 2013. We knew the LPC needed a mechanical keyboard for gaming, too—there's just nothing like the responsive clickiness of mechanical keys. But there are tons of great gaming keyboards out there with identical layouts and the same Cherry MX mechanical switches. The frills vary—this one has customizable LED lights, that one has a billion programmable macro buttons. We skipped all that and went for the $150 WASD V2 mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches.

We picked the WASD V2 because it's incredibly customizable. We chose our key colors and typeface. We chose Cherry MX Red switches because they're faster than the popular MX Blacks. That degree of customization mattered more to us than backlit keys or bloated driver software, and now the LPC has a great keyboard with a matching black and red color scheme.

Be sure to also check out our list of the best gaming keyboards.

Click here to see more of the parts we've picked for the Large Pixel Collider.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).