What I do is find a shop with the keyboard I am thinking about buying and go there to look at it, I then place my hand in the location that I would have it if I was using it.

If it feel's fine and has the right amount of buttons then I buy it, but I will also look at cheaper ones as well and ones that are more expensive.

I found that I was looking at a keyboard that was £50, one that was £100, and one that was only £8.

After looking at the 3 of them and putting my hand where it would be if I was playing a game and actually pressing the button's, I went for the £8 one because it felt the best for the usuage I had in mind for it, although the build quality was low.

Gaming keyboard's do make a difference but only when they feel better to you than one that is not a gaming keyboard, and it's the same with mice.

I used a wireless mouse that all the reviews for it said it was terrible for gaming, but I found it to be the best mouse I had used until I got my old Coolermaster Sentinal and my current MS Sidewinder.

The best thing to do is look and feel what the keyboard's and mice are like, and then see if you can buy it and take it back if it doesn't feel right or see if you can try it in the shop.

I know where I buy my hardware etc from they have a few pc's setup with games installed on them so that you can try different setup's.

Any decent place will allow you to test them 1st before you buy them.

Supposedly, some of the higher end gaming keyboards (Ie: Logitech G15 v2, etc) have circuitry to prevent what's called "phantom key presses" - which is essentially when you press (lets say) 3 keys, but because the way  the signals travel along the circuit board, it registers a 4th (due to the X & Y intersecting).

Newer keyboards usually have isolation circuits to prevent that, but it can still happen.

Another thing is that gaming keyboards are specifically designed to allow a higher maximum number of keys to be pressed simultaneously.

A cheap 20 keyboard from radio shack might only register 2-3 keys at once.

A high end keyboard (Logitech G15, Saitek, etc) might be designed to register 4-5 key presses at once.

Personally though? I haven't noticed a huge difference.

Re: PS2 vs USB:

I haven't noticed a performance difference, to be honest. I have ran into some compatibility problems - despite the fact that USB 2.0 is supposed to be  backwards compatible with USB 1.1, that's not always the case.

Plus, there's always a risk of a USB port going bad, or an intermittent connection (again, attributed to a bad, or on its way out USB port). I've encountered a few scenarios where a USB port that's on it's way out caused erratic system behavior - sometimes my system freezes, sometimes XP registers the USB plug being unplugged/plugged (that little alert window in the right hand corner) etc.

Then again, the same can happen with a PS2 port as well. But, most feature packed keyboards are USB. So it's a tradeoff.

@Wierd: +1 on the MS Sidewinder mouse. I have pretty big hands, so the hefty bulk of it fills my palms nicely. Plus, it's got the slide out tray for weights/glide resistance & what not. Plus all the extra buttons allow me to bind various equipment to them (killstreaks 1 & 2 are assigned to the silver buttons on the side for me)

Out of curiosity how you guys hold your keyboard?

I have noticed that I always keep it kinda sideways so that wasd buttons are in the bottom corner and number buttons (on the left side of keyboard) are in the upper corner.

If you guys get what I'm saying lol

I can go 50-0 + regularly. and I dont hack. Keyboards really do not make a difference as I have not owned anything spectacular like a mechanical board, though I do have the new Cooler Master Storm Quickfire mechanical board on the way with MX Brown switches.

What really matters is your mouse first, and monitor second.

I use a Deathadder, and will upgrade to the Corsair M60 soon.

and my monitor is a u2412m IPS 1200p monitor. I can see people when they cant see me over long distances, through brush, and smoke, because of how accurate the colors are on an IPS monitor.

I use to play with the zboard keyboard which I used for gaming.  When I wore it out I found that the Logitech G510 was a real good keyboard also.  It has the G1 -G18 keys so you could assign any movement to these keys. You could also plug in your headset to the keyboard itself.  But as for this keyboard I have not had any problems with it.  It also has updates and it is different because it reads all your games you have installed on your computer. If compatible it will show you.  Go research it for yourself.  Good luck!