MSI GK30, GM30 & GH30 Gaming Peripherals Review

Setup & Performance

I wanted to start with the headset, with features those lovely 40mm drives in their PU-leather padded ear cups. The drivers are wonderful, actually, they sound bloody amazing for the price of the headset, I really wasn’t expecting it. The sound really clear and natural and fantastic for music too. That’s about it, they just work great! However…

As comfortable as the headset is, it never felt quite right on my head. The ear cups don’t really clamp around my ears so much as they float next to my ears, it’s really annoying. I have a large head, I know that much, but the headset extension goes far enough to accommodate me and with more to spare actually so it should fit.

It did feel comfortable to wear, but as I said, it didn’t feel like it was sitting right and shaking my head made it fall off. The lack of a good seal also meant that it leaked noise both ways, so having it louder meant everyone in the room could hear it.

Fit is so subjective though, it may fit your head perfectly! But overall, I have zero complaints about the audio performance, and while nothing fancy, the microphone quality was decent too, more than good enough for a bit of team chat and the occasional Skype call.

Powered up, the keyboard and mouse spark to life in a wave of RGB goodness. The colours aren’t mega bright, but they’re hardly dull either. I don’t like them too bright anyway, as it’s distracting, but I do like vivid and rich colours, which is exactly what you’ll find here.

Of course, on the default setting, it’s all puking rainbows and looks pretty dizzying, but you can dial in any colour or effect as you see fit. Of course, you can turn the lights off too if you really need to; handy for movie nights!

The keyboard also has this lovely little strip of light on the front bezel, it’s a small detail, but one that I really like. You will also notice that most of the light is underlighting, with only a mild illumination on the keys. Again, I quite like it this way around.

The keyboard looks and feels pretty great though, the plunger switches are basically membrane technology. However, because they’re mounted with the plunger, they behave more like a Cherry MX Brown with some o-ring mods, rather than a simple rubber dome.

It’s a nicer feel overall though, without the added cost of a similarly equipped mechanical keyboard.

The mouse is equally stylish to look at, with the slick two-tone design that really contrasts well with the RGB lighting. The main focus of the RGB is clearly in the big recess at the top, and it looks amazing.

The colours are really strong in here, and it’s a unique way to show off some of the lighting effects. Of course, you also get lighting on the MSI logo as well as the mouse wheel.

The mouse is super comfortable to hold, and its symmetrical, so it’s just as comfortable in either hand. However, it only has side buttons on the left, making it right-handed use for most. It glides really well, the switches have a nice click to them too. Actually, the switches are a little heavy and the click is quite strong, but that’s just how I like it. However, it’s their sensor that stands out the most, tracking smoothly, no jitter, no angle snapping, it’s honestly pretty fantastic.

So, the only thing that bothers me is the design. The mouse looks great, the keyboard looks great, and the headset looks OK. However, despite all being branded as GH, GM, and GK, and all being number 30, implying they’re all the same range, series, etc, they all look different.

The headset is black and grey, the mouse is a glittery two-tone grey, and the keyboard a different set of greys and black again. The headset isn’t RGB, but the other two are. It makes no sense to me. On their own, they look fine, but as a set? It looks like three different teams made them, but didn’t check what the others were doing.