MSI has announced its latest gaming notebook dubbed the GT80, which is equipped with a backlit mechanical SteelSeries keyboard equipped with Cherry switches. GT80 uses standard mechanical keycap and Cherry's standard brown MX switch, providing tactile typing feedback to enhance gaming experience. The keyboard is powered by SteelSeries through its anti-ghosting design (N-key rollover) and SteelSeries Engine software suite.

The SteelSeries Engine is a software suite now with CloudSync. This means that the SteelSeries cloud storage system will save and synchronize all SteelSeries peripherals. Gamers can switch between different configurations inside of the same or different games by just one-click through a macro key that can be programmed by SteelSeries Engine.

Despite the mechanical keyboard requiring over five times as much space to function, 27mm compared to a membrane keyboard’s 5mm, the GT80 manages to be the thinner than its closest rival. At 49.1mm thick and a weight of 4.7kg it is a full 17% thinner and weighs 22% less, despite the rival using a conventional membrane keyboard.