It would appear that gaming peripherals are all the rage nowadays, with more and more companies trying to grab a piece of a surprisingly resiliant PC gaming market. Many manufacturers of other PC components, such as memory and cooling products, have diversified and released gaming keyboards and mice during the past couple of years. The most prominent examples probably are Corsair and Cooler Master, who went as far as to create "gaming divisions" within their own companies.

Along those same lines, G.Skill, a company known for their memory-related products, is now diversifying as well and joining the gaming peripherals market. As part of their initial foray into gaming peripherals the company is starting small, releassing just a single mouse and a single keyboard, the Ripjaws KM780 RGB and Ripjaws MX780 RGB, respectively. Both of these are very high end products with very interesting specifications, clearly designed to compete with the cream of gaming keyboards and mice available today.

G.Skill Ripjaws KM780 Mechanical Keyboard ($160) - Key features and specifications

  • 100% Cherry MX RGB switches (Brown or Red)
  • Fully Programmable Keys
  • Per-key RGB Backlighting
  • Extra Gaming Keycaps, Keycap Tool & Keycap Case
  • On-board Profile Storage
  • Full n-Key Rollover and 100% Anti-Ghosting
  • Dedicated Macro Control & Mode Selection Keys
  • Windows Lock Key
  • LED Backlight Toggle
  • Timer Key
  • Media Control Corner & LED Volume Display
  • Detachable Soft-Touch Wrist Rest
  • Five-Level Contoured Keycaps
  • G.SKILL Unified Driver System
  • Mouse Cable Holder
  • USB Pass-Through & Audio Jacks

G.Skill Ripjaws MX780 Gaming Mouse ($50) - Key features and specifications

  • Ambidextrous & Interchangeable Side Grips
  • Height-Adjustable Design
  • On-board Profile Storage
  • Adjustable Weights
  • Avago 8200 DPI Laser Sensor
  • Durable Omron Micro-Switch
  • 8 Fully Programmable Buttons
  • Customizable RGB Backlighting
  • G.SKILL Unified Driver System 

G.Skill's entrance into the peripherals market comes at an interesting time. Although I'm not sure one can claim that this market is truly saturated at this point, among the PC component companies who have diversified, G.Skill is definitely coming in behind the pack. This means they not only need to compete with the traditional vendors in this space such as Logitech, but also the companies that diversified earlier such as the afformentioned Corsair. The good news for G.Skill here is that the PC peripherals market is a lot easier to break into since it's not so strictly a commodity market - unlike RAM, mice and keyboards involve direct human interaction and are not merely a faceless chip inside a case - which gives G.Skill a fighting chance even if they are late in joining this market.

As for the products themselves, as I briefly touched upon before, G.Skill has aimed for the high-end segment of the market. The Ripjaws KM780 keyboard retails for around $160, and meanwhile the Ripjaws MX780 mouse is lighter on the wallet at $60. These prices are comparable to similar RGB mechanical keyboards and gaming mice, so G.Skill is competitive on prices, though this does mean that G.Skill needs to convince buyers that they have something that established brands do not. Otherwise the high-end market is a very small market - a definite niche in the PC space - but also a more profitable one, which for G.Skill is no doubt a welcome change from the thin margins of selling large volumes of RAM.

The G.Skill Ripjaws KM780 Mechanical Keyboard
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  • techfreshness - Friday, November 6, 2015 - link

    me too man, they actuate and reset faster as well. can't speak to the durability vs cherry mx's though, those aren't true gaming switches imo, invented in the 80's lol
  • Friendly0Fire - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    Towards the medium/high end, Corsair's keyboards are pretty sweet (and come with MX Browns, among others). I have the K95 RGB, which I love, but the K70 is essentially the same with less fluff.
  • mastercheif91 - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    I'm surprised you outright claim that Cherry RGB switches provide the best lighting experience. While most vastly prefer the typing experience from the Cherry switches, the Logitech Romer-G switch lighting theoretically is a much better solution. Having the lighting tube built into the key stem seems to be a much more efficient method of lighting key caps than merely turning the entire housing translucent.
  • Manch - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    yay another keyboard.....so...about that Surface Book review?
  • Stuka87 - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    You do know that different people review different items?
  • Manch - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    Oh I thought all the articles were written by one guy like at DT...
  • Manch - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    Or perhaps I was just expressing my disappointment about yet another filler article.
  • metayoshi - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link

    Umm... Welcome to Anandtech, I guess? It's the one reason I stay attached to Anandtech. They don't just review the big name consumer products out there like the Samsung Galaxy S6's, iPhone 6s's, Surface Pro 4s, and Macbook Pros, they review the little niche market segments like random cases and power supplies and gaming accessories like mice and keyboards. They review things like NAS boxes and SSDs, not just the latest and greatest CPUs from Intel/AMD and the latest and greatest GPUs from Nvidia/AMD. As an enthusiast like me who likes to build PCs every few years, Anandtech is a godsend of a website, and it's articles like these that help me when I need a new keyboard, or a new SSD, or a new NAS box. I can get reviews of the big products on a billion different websites, though not of the same quality as Anandtech, and I can usually form my own opinion about those products from those other websites, but for PC components, Anandtech is still one of the only places for quality reviews.
  • Manch - Thursday, November 5, 2015 - link

    Good lord people....so sensitive...
  • Joy-Energiser - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link

    Good lord you're an idiot, go troll another article.

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