GIGABYTE M8000 Xtreme Gaming Mouse Review

Performance Results

General, Everyday Usage

Unless you are a hardcore gamer, a paid professional or a World of Warcraft addict, the majority of any peripheral's daily usage routine will consist of more mundane things. To this end, a mouse made for gaming also has to be comfortable for long-term “normal” uses like surfing the Internet, manipulating photos in Photoshop and even more general “boring” tasks. Over the course of two weeks, this mouse was used as the lone human interface device and this is what we found.


In daily tasks, we found that much like the M8000, the M8000X with all three 6 gram weights installed into the base of the unit, setting 1500 dpi to one of the DPI presets and setting 1200DPI to another one seemed to be darn near perfect for most of our needs. The M8000 Xtreme was just as comfortable at the end of a three hour Photoshop and Excel chart-making session as it was at the beginning. The five distinct profiles really made things a heck of a lot easier as we were able to switch between not only a Photoshop macro laden profile and an Excel profile but also a secondary Photoshop one set up with more advanced macros.

When it came to Internet usage, it did become apparent that the two added profiles changed the M8000X from a very good mouse, to a downright great product. We were able to set up a fourth profile with our usual Internet surfing button remapping without needing to drop any of our other custom profiles. This still left another profile free for email macros and other miscellaneous things we do on a regular basis. The slightly changed ergonomics really don’t seem all that much when you look at the mouse but we can honestly say that the M8000X really should fit most hands like a glove. These improved ergonomics combined with the rubber side grips allowed for a pain free experience throughout the extended tests.

Gaming Impressions

General usage is all well and fine but for a product labeled, marked and designed as a “gaming mouse", games need to be played. So, with unrestrained glee we let loose the hounds of war…so to speak and subjected the Ghost to everything from a 12 hour Crysis marathon (an oldie but a goodie when played with much of the eye candy turned on), to opening up the classic version of StarCraft for some old fashioned Zerg genocide.


When we tested the original M8000 we were fairly impressed with its responsiveness in a gaming environment but walked away wanting more when it came to the grip and feel it offered. It seems that Gigabyte listened as the small tweaks they did to the overall profile allows your whole finger to rest on the two main mouse buttons. This meant that no matter how hot and heavy things got we never missed a shot from our finger slipping off the button instead of depressing it like happened with the original M8000 Ghost. This of course was when we were using our typical palm style grip. When we switched over to a more claw style the same issue we had with the M8000 was readily apparent with the M8000 Xtreme: the buttons are too slick. The main fire buttons really need a rubber coating or some other means of keeping your finger from slipping off them instead of depressing them.

On the fly DPI changes really help for quick transitions from (low DPI) long range head shots to (higher DPI) mêlée combat. Regardless of how fast you like your mouse….this mouse can handle it and leave you plenty of room for growth. We also liked the fact that we could set up some pretty complex macros for enhanced fun. Also noteworthy was how easy Perfect Tracking Precision was to use, and it did have a noticeable impact on performance when we went from using our normal mouse pad to just using a high gloss table surface. We admit we though PTP sounded like marketing gone awry, but it does work and works well.

However, the pièce de résistance was the ability to turn off the glow the M8000X emits from its center spine. It may not sound like much, but in a darkened room that pulsing light can get annoying and break your concentration at a crucial moment, so having the ability to shut it off was the icing on the cake for us. This really is the mouse we have been waiting for from Gigabyte and while not perfect for all people’s gaming styles, it is a mouse we would consider to be a good gaming mouse for most.

Response Rate Testing

We admittedly had high expectations for the M8000X and with it set to its max 1000Hz setting we walked away impressed. As with the original GM M8000 we were able to get better than 1ms response time from the M8000 Xtreme. To be precise we got a peak response of 0.96ms or 1040Hz which is extremely good.