Gigabyte has announced "the world's first" gaming keyboard with an ergonomic variable force design. Easily accessible keys such as WSAD, numbers one through five and space require a force of 70g to actuate, while keys like shift and tab have a peak force of 50g because they are often hit with your weakest finger. Most of the keys are rated at 60g. The company also touts the Aivia K8100's massive wrist rest, which it likens to the hood of a sports car – an odd comparison, if we may say so.
The 'board has five macro buttons with support for up to 100 macros courtesy of Gigabyte's "Ghost Macro Engine," which includes onboard memory to remember your settings between systems. The product page claims you can press up to 20 keys simultaneously, but we assume there's just an optimized gaming cluster with 20 anti-ghost keys. In other words, certain combinations might not register but Gigabyte has tweaked the board so it shouldn't be an issue for common gaming keys.
The Aivia K8100 features backlit keys with an on/off switch, though we don't see any way to adjust the illumination level. There's also a button to disable the Windows keys, two USB 2.0 ports, and a pretty nifty "touch and slide" volume control. The bottom seems to have a cable routing system, but Gigabyte doesn't elaborate on that. The Aivia K8100 comes in black, yellow or red and includes a silicone keyboard cover, rubber WASD keys and a plastic keycap puller. No word on pricing or availability.