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Gigabyte announces gaming keyboard

by on18 March 2008

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Mechanical switches, USB audio and more

Normally a new gaming keyboard isn't too big of a deal, but it seems that we have a new player who's joined a market that is quickly getting more competitive. Gigabyte is far from the first company you'd think of when it comes to keyboards, but now the company has launched its first gaming keyboard, the GK-K8000.

Apart from the poorly chosen model name, it looks rather interesting and Gigabyte makes some very bold claims. We know for a fact that this isn't the world's first gaming keyboard to use mechanical switches, as SteelSeries beat them to it, as they, too, are working with Cherry when it comes to their gaming keyboards. The mechanical switches from Cherry should allow for a very nice and tactile feel to the keys and Gigabyte guarantees up to 60 million keystrokes.

This alone doesn't make for a great gaming keyboard, although it's a start, but Gigabyte has also added what they call a Ghost Engine to the keyboard. There's also a row of keys above the F-keys which are programmable, and this is where the Ghost Engine comes into play. According to Gigabyte there's 100 programmable profiles and three of them are available via what Gigabyte calls a super-switch. There are 10 programmable buttons, which would give a total of 10,000 macros.

Although only 10 profiles can be stored in the 512kB of onboard memory, with the rest having to be accessed via the Ghost Engine software. Gigabyte also decided to add a C-Media 6300 USB audio chip to the mix. We're not sure why you'd want USB audio built into your keyboard and it seems like something that has just been thrown in for good measure. The keyboard interfaces via USB 2.0 and there's also a built-in USB 2.0 port. The keyboard has some basic multimedia control buttons, as well as a Windows key lock button which prevens accidental presses of the Windows key.

Finally, the keyboard comes with a wrist rest stand which looks kinda odd on the picture, but it's hard to tell how it works as a wrist rest. We're not super keen on the overall design of the keyboard, but it might appeal to the younger gaming generation. According to Digitimes, the GK-K8000 should retail for about US$114 or €72 when it becomes available.

You can find the product page here

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Last modified on 18 March 2008
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