Gigabyte announced its latest keyboard over the weekend, a follow-up to its Aorus K7. The new Aorus K1 features Cherry MX Red mechanical switches, full per-key RGB light, n-key rollover anti-ghosting technology and programmable macros. While Gigabyte is fairly new to the keyboard business, this marks its latest attempt to expand beyond attempts at making the best motherboards to hopes of offering some of the best gaming keyboards.
The Aorus K1 largely features the same insides as the K7 but sports a new “neonpunk” design, as Gigabyte called it. The new design takes the K7’s fairly standard gray base and reimagines it in all-black with raised cosmetic vents on either side and the phrase “Team up. Fight on.” printed on the left side.
Aside from that, the Aorus K1 got the same USB 2.0 braided cable, Cherry MX Red mechanical switches, RGB, 2mm actuation point key travel (4mm to bottom), 1,000 Hz max report rate and even dimensions as its predecessor. However, it does come in slightly heavier than the K7, and Gigabyte promises double the K7’s switch life at 100 million presses.
The Aorus K1 also comes with Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion 2.0 software, which offers RGB presets, like wave, cycle or ripple patterns. There are additional modes to only light up the most-used buttons for certain game genres, like MOBAs and first person shooters, as well as a reactive mode that lights up keys for a brief moment after being pressed.
On top of that, the K1 has on-the-fly controls for music, volume, brightness and RGB, plus the ability to set any key to perform a specific macro using on-board memory.
Gigabyte has yet to release pricing or availability details.
Overall, this seems to be a largely aesthetic refresh, but if you love cyberpunk design and have yet to buy a mechanical keyboard, this could be one to look out for.
