Gigabyte's GK-K8000 Gaming Keyboard, Functional Minimalism

C.S. Magor — Sun, 11 May 2008 06:36:50 -0700

Gigabyte has done something unexpected and thrown their hat into the interface ring. It is not really surprising considering they produce just about everything else a gamer needs. So let's take a look at their latest offering, the GK-K8000.

Make no mistake, the GK-K8000 is not going to be taking home any design awards. Butt ugly is an understatement, but then looks aren't important when it comes to an all-out fragging contest. It has all the buttons in the right places and a bunch of macro keys mounted atop the F-Key line. There does not appear to be any LED backlighting, which means that unless you can touch type you might want to play with the lights on.

While I have not had a hands on, looking at this keyboard I can see that Gigabyte has opted for high-profile hard plastic keys. My Razer Lycosa has the low-profile rubberized type which pays dividends if you do a lot of typing. Seriously, I bang out about 6,000+ words per day, so any keyboard I get has to be functional as a typing platform first and foremost and this is where the GK-K8000 looks like it falls down. It looks like an RSI nightmare.

On first impressions, I would say that it is good if you want a cheap and nasty but effective gaming keyboard, but try it out if you need to crunch a lot of data or do a lot of writing. There is nothing worse than aching fingertips from a stiff set of keys. [Tweak Town via PC Launches]

Hardware

Gigabyte's GK-K8000 Gaming Keyboard, Functional Minimalism