G.Skill Ripjaws KM780 Keyboard Review

Software

It’s unsurprising that the tricked-out KM780 would come with software. The G.Skill software is fully-featured, with sections that allow you customize each key, adjust settings, control lighting, and work with macros.

On the left side of the screen, you can select or import profiles, link to a program (which will automatically launch a specified profile), or set up one of the three Modes. What’s powerful here is that you can create three Modes within a given profile. Because you can create up to three profiles, you effectively get up to nine Modes.

One thing you must keep in mind is that no changes take effect and nothing is saved until you click “Save to device memory” under Profile.

Customize

The software has a handy GUI of the KM780, so you can mouse over any of the regular keys or the G keys and click to program them. (You can’t program the dedicated media buttons or Mode buttons.) Once you click a given key, a pop up menu will let you select from Default, Keyboard, Mouse Function, Multimedia, Macro, Windows Shortcuts, Launch Program, Text, or Disable. Obviously, there are selections you can make within each of those (save for Default and Disable).

Under Keyboard, you can simply remap a key. When prompted, simply press the key you want to remap to the selected key and click Save. (As stated above, don’t forget to click “Save to device memory” under Profile.) Mouse functions include left or right click, scroll click, back/forward, double click, and scroll up/down. Your multimedia controls consist of volume up/down, mute, play/pause, next/previous track, and stop. Windows shortcuts are a few of the usual suspects, such as launching the task manager, opening the systems utility, closing an app, or showing the desktop.

Setting

Under the Setting tab, you can adjust the polling rate to 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, or 1,000Hz; toggle between NKRO or 6KRO; and create sleep and timer settings (for which you can add a lighting effect, because why not).

The timer, as you may surmise, lets you set time limits on activities, and it employs an on-screen display (OSD) text message and/or lighting effect for when the time expires. After you choose your text and/or lighting effect (and click “Save to Device Memory”), press the dedicated timer button on the keyboard, and press it again to start the clock. This feature seems only marginally useful, as there is no clock anywhere to tell you how much time you have left, but so it goes. You can set the timer in units of seconds, but not minutes or hours.

Using a slider, you can adjust the speed of the repeat rate acceleration and select 1x, 2x, 4, or 8x repeat delay.

Lighting

Pay attention here, because there are actually two lighting areas. The “Lighting” tab is adjacent to the Customize and Setting tabs, but there’s also a Lighting Profiles area located on the upper left corner of the software window.

Under the Lighting tab, you can select between Background Lighting and Effect lighting, tick a box to disable the lighting, and use a slider to adjust the brightness. If you select Background Lighting, you can choose between “All” or “Single” keyboard modes. Simply put, if you choose the former, that means you can select a color that will affect the whole keyboard, whereas the latter lets you assign a color to specific keys.

Note that the red LED lighting of the volume level indicator on the upper right side of the KM780 remains red no matter what, which is unfortunate if you’re looking to maintain a certain aesthetic.

If you select Effect lighting, you can assign Wave, Breathing, Cycle, Ripple, Reactive, Changeling, or Checkpoint.

You are not, however, bound by the default colors and durations of the above effects. In the other Lighting Profiles area, you can tweak the settings of the effects, including changing colors, selecting different colors on the various “stops” in a given effect, increasing the speed of the effects’ changes, and even creating custom colors from the essentially infinite RGB palette.

The effects G.Skill baked into the software are:

• Wave
• Breathing
• Cycle
• Ripple
• Reactive
• Changeling: “When a key is pressed, that key will brighten and cycle through the preset colors. If the same key is pressed while lit, then the cycle of colors will restart from the beginning.”
• Checkpoint: “When the number of keystrokes reach the customized amount, the entire keyboard will change to the next color point. The faster you type, the faster the keyboard will change color.”

Macros

Creating macros with this software is fairly standard procedure. Before you start, tick the box of your choosing: Record Delay, Default Delay (with a second little box to define how many milliseconds of delay), or No Delay. Below that, click Record, do your thing, and press Stop. You can name your macro whatever you want, and then you’re done.

To assign a macro to any key, revisit the Customize tab.

You can also program macros on-the-fly using the MR button and no software. You press the MR button, press the key you want to set off the macro, perform the combination you want to program, and press the MR key again. You can edit the macro, then, from the software.

Up at the top right corner of the software’s window, you’ll find three tiny icons--a wrench, a “G,” and a “W.” The wrench launches another window that lets you check for software updates, the G launches G.Skill’s website, and the W opens a browser window with your warranty information displayed.

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