You can game with a standard computer keyboard for a while, but at some point, it’ll be best to upgrade to a gaming keyboard. Gaming keyboards include touches and features that improve your performance and which generally make gaming more enjoyable and comfortable. 

You’ll find decent keyboards at all price points, including at the lower end of the scale, which includes the SteelSeries Apex 3 and HyperX Alloy Core gaming keyboards. These two offerings aren’t groundbreaking, but they do offer much of what amateur gamers look for in a gaming keyboard.

On this page, you’ll find all the useful information you need to know about each keyboard, which in turn will help you to make an informed decision about which one is right for you. 

Side-by-Side Comparison

There are more similarities between the SteelSeries Apex 3 and the HyperX Alloy Core gaming keyboards than there are differences, but those differences are significant and will influence your decision.

But first, let’s start with the similarities. Both of these options are wired keyboards, have backlighting, and have nearly identical dimensions. They also look broadly similar if aesthetics are important to you. Finally, if neither keyboard is on sale, they generally are in the same price range plus or minus a few dollars.

And now to the differences. It’s clear that the build quality of the SteelSeries Apex 3 is slightly superior to that of the HyperX Alloy Core. The SteelSeries keyboard also comes with wrist support (detachable) and can be customized using the keyboard’s SteelSeries Engine software. HyperX Alloy Core offers no software support at the time of this review. 

What about pure performance? SteelSeries Apex 3 again wins this one, offering lower latency (10.7 ms) than the HyperX Alloy Core (15.3 ms). Though, in truth, that’s such a slight difference that the majority of gamers would not notice. 

What Do Gamers Think? 

Technical differences are one thing, but what really counts is how they perform during gameplay. For that, we need to turn to the review’s from actual gamers. 

Both of these keyboards received exceptional feedback from gamers. The HyperX Alloy Core keyboard received an average of 4.6/5 from nearly 4,500 reviews; the SteelSeries Apex 3 keyboard received an average of 4.7/5 from some 4,800 reviews. 

That point difference is an accurate reflection of what most professional reviewers had to say about both of these keyboards, which is, in effect: the HyperX offering is good, but the SteelSeries Apex 3 is just slightly better in the ways that count.

So what did users like about these products? A little bit of everything, basically. They generally applauded the build quality, price points, and design of both keyboards. Indeed, many reviewers were so surprised with the quality of the product that they thought the price was “a steal,” which is about as high a compliment as you can get.

The Bottom Line

You could buy either of these keyboards and probably be happy with your purchase. The general consensus is that both of them work well and look good. The SteelSeries Apex 3 keyboard does seem to have a slight edge, but amateur gamers are probably unlikely to notice a huge difference.

Have you tried either of these gaming keyboards? If so, let me know if the comments what you think. If you made it this far, you may also be interested in our recent guide looking at a few of the best gaming keyboards under $100 on the market right now.