HyperX Alloy Origins 60 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

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Penned by Cody D. Campbell

Cody has been a gamer ever since his family got a Sega Genesis when he was five-years-old. In addition to his love of narrative-focused RPGs and ho... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

HyperX has recently released a new 60% keyboard as part of their Alloy Origins lineup. There’s been an increase in demand for 60% boards in the last couple of years, especially in the PC gaming community. They have everything you need for basic productivity without any non-essential keys to get in your way, freeing up desk space and giving you more room to swing your mouse.

It’s an increasingly competitive market, so we were thrilled when HyperX asked us to review their new Alloy Origins 60 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. We’ve had it for three weeks now, and we’re excited to let you know what we think!

HyperX Alloy Origins 60 Video Review

Prefer watching a video instead of reading? Check out the video below from our hardware reviewer Cody Campbell.

Unboxing

The HyperX Alloy Origins 60 comes in a small box that leaves no illusions about the size of the keyboard inside. The board itself is displayed as soon as you open it. There are some instructions on a sleeve inside the lid and a few other goodies under the cardboard base. There, you’ll find a removable braided USB Type-C cable and a small plastic bag containing a keycap remover, a keycap with the HyperX insignia, and a replacement spacebar with a topographic design.

The build quality of the HyperX is apparent as soon as you pick it up. You can see some of the DNA left over from their collaboration with Ducky. Its aircraft-grade aluminum body has some serious heft to it. That’s good because the last thing you want is for your tiny keyboard to slide all over your desk when you’re trying to use it. It also has four rubber feet and extendable feet at the rear that can be used to tilt the board to either 7 or 11-degree angles.

The keycaps are a nice, matte-black PBT that is sturdier and doesn’t “shine” as fast as ABS. You can kind of see the outline of the red switches underneath, but that didn’t really bother me.

Making the Switch to HyperX

The Alloy Origins 60 comes with HyperX’s own in-house mechanical red switches. These are slightly touchier than the Cherry MX Reds I’ve used in the past. The actuation difference is minimal enough that I had to look it up to make sure it wasn’t all in my head (just 0.2mm). This can be a pro for gamers with light fingers who want the fastest actuation speed possible, but it definitely takes some getting used to. They are incredibly smooth with no noticeable ping. According to the HyperX website, they’re “rated for 80 million keypresses with no loss of quality.” The keyboard is only available with linear reds as of now, so fans of clicky or tactile switches will have to look elsewhere.

The key positioning felt a little tight to me, but a lot of that is just the nature of the beast. 60% form factor keyboards are designed to take up as little space as possible after all. Typing on the Alloy Origins 60 was smooth and easy once I’d gotten used to it.

One thing I particularly liked was that they put the function (FN) key in the bottom right corner and pre-assigned the arrow keys directly beside it with labels on the front face of the keycaps. This is a much more instinctive placement than some 60% keyboards I’ve seen.  

RGB with NGENUITY

The RGB on this keyboard is beautiful. The lights shine through the letters bright and clear with just a hint of color bleeding between keycaps. The topographic spacebar is particularly stylish. One of the first things I did was swap it onto the board.

You can control the RGB through HyperX’s NGENUITY software. It allows you to choose from one of eight looping effects and three triggered effects. It also allows you to control brightness, speed, opacity, and fine-tune color selection. One of the cooler things you can do is to layer effects and then lower the opacity of the top layer to create new effects.

The software also allows you to reassign keys. You probably won’t want to mess with the base layer too much, but the FN layer is your opportunity to really customize hotkey options.

It’s not the most comprehensive control software we’ve seen. You can only save up to three profiles at a time, but it’s simple, easy to use, and has all the essentials covered.

Get Hyped for HyperX!

Right now, the biggest competitors in the 60% keyboard market are probably the Anne Pro 2, the Razer Huntsman Mini, and (naturally) the HyperX Alloy Origins 60. Between the three, the HyperX Alloy Origins 60 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard is the cheapest of the three. However, it’s worth noting that the Anne Pro 2 can be used wirelessly and has three different options for Gateron Switches.

All-in-all, the Alloy Origins 60 is a phenomenal keyboard that occupies a competitive place in the market. Its HyperX Linear Red switches are comparable to premium tier mechanical switches, if a touch on the sensitive side, and its build quality is fantastic.

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