Gigabyte is best known for its motherboards and video cards, but the company has been making moves on the gaming-gear market.
Also on the upswing: the reputation of its Aorus sub-brand as a source for hardcore gamer hardware on a variety of fronts: whole systems, PC components, keyboards, and much more.
The $69.99 Gigabyte Aorus M5 carries a number of improvements over Gigabyte's older Aorus M3 mouse design.
It's not revolutionary, but it cements Gigabyte as a legit player in the gaming-mouse space.
We'd want to see a price drop, though, before resolutely opting for it versus competing models from, for example, Razer and Roccat.
The Design: A Revised M3
The exterior of Gigabyte's Aorus M5 is markedly similar to the Aorus M3.
Looking at the mouse from above, the most notable difference is a divide that runs between the left- and right-click mouse buttons and the palm rest.
In a small-but-slick detail, a piece of aluminum encircles the scroll wheel and the two resolution-switching buttons behind it.
The scroll wheel also has RGB LEDs now, inside the rim.
The left side of the mouse has two thumb-trigger buttons and a stack of four white LEDs that indicates which resolution/DPI profile is in use.
This is the same configuration Gigabyte used on the M3, and the right side of the mouse is also unchanged, with no buttons.
This makes the design geared resolutely toward righty users.
In an unusual move, Gigabyte slimmed down the width of the rubber grips on both the left and right sides of the Aorus M5.
This doesn't pose a significant problem while using the mouse, but if your fingertips don't land just right when you try to grab it, it may well slip from your hand.
Gigabyte also added more RGB LEDs, as stripes, down the left and right flanks of the mouse.
These added RGB LEDs are a notable aesthetic improvement versus earlier Aorus efforts.
The only RGB LEDs on the Aorus M3, for example, are on the palm rest, which means you can't see the lights when using the mouse.
With the LEDs on the wheel and the sides, you can enjoy the light show and use the mouse simultaneously.
The weight of the Aorus M5 is adjustable via a set of five removable 2.5g weights.
These are little polygonal slabs that fit into niches in the mouse bottom, not the usual aspirin-shaped metal weights.
These weights fit behind a detachable cover that is held on by a magnet.
The magnet on our test sample, though, was poorly affixed at the factory and detached itself during shipping.
This was easy to fix with a dab of superglue, but that's obviously not ideal.
The weights fit snugly into the mouse.
It's a little difficult to work the weights in or out of their niches, but you won't need to worry about them coming loose.
Digging deeper into the Aorus M5, some other notable improvements are under the shell.
The left- and right-click mouse buttons use high-quality Omron switches that are designed to last for up to 50 million clicks; that rates 250 percent higher than the switches on the M3.
The M5 also has a significantly upticked optical sensor, a Pixart 3389 that's more energy-efficient and can read at up to 16,000dpi, the usual ceiling these days for high-end mice.
Revving Up the Aorus Engine
You download Gigabyte's Aorus Engine software to control the mouse's LEDs, program the buttons, and adjust other key settings.
This software has support for a wide range of other Gigabyte- and Aorus-brand devices and can sync the LEDs on your Gigabyte products so that they use the same lighting pattern.
By default, the LEDs are set to a light pattern that Gigabyte refers to as Marquee.
In it, the mouse cycles through its full range of 16.7 million colors at a dizzying pace.
(Depending on your tolerance for RGB bling, you may need to don shades.) You can adjust the speed at which the colors change, but the slowest setting here is still extraordinarily fast.
The mouse also supports a Cycling pattern that runs at one fairly slow speed.
I'd like to see an update that slows down the Marquee pattern a bit more and accelerates the Cycling pattern; neither feels spot-on at the moment.
You also have the option of a breathing pattern, a flashing pattern, a dual-flashing pattern, and one profile that sets the mouse to a single constant color.
All of these profiles work exactly like they should and have appropriate speed controls.
I can't say much about the color quality of the LEDs; they aren't the brightest I've seen on a mouse, but the amount of glow is satisfactory without being obnoxious.
All of the buttons can be programmed to perform a wide range of functions, including macros and keyboard shortcuts.
The standard configuration has the side buttons programmed to page-forward and -back commands, whereas the middle two buttons, as mentioned earlier, are for DPI adjustments.
First "Hand" Impressions
I used the Aorus M5 as my daily-driver mouse for a little over a week and didn't experience any serious problems.
I do feel, though, that the rubber grips on the sides are too slim.
The shell fits nicely in hand, but when I'm moving the mouse in frantic gaming sessions, I feel like it's on the verge of slipping out of my hand.
If your hands tend to get sweaty while gaming, I'd suggest checking into an alternative mouse.
The mouse's software is a different story.
At the time of initial review, Gigabyte hadn't added proper support for the M5 to its Aorus Engine utility.
I was able to adjust a wide range of settings on the mouse using the Aorus Engine, but the max DPI setting was just 6,400dpi.
A January 2019 update to the Engine rectified matters.
As I use a 4K display, the lower DPI settings were a bit sluggish for me.
At around 1,200dpi, the mouse becomes tolerable, but I used it mostly at 3,500dpi as the best balance.
The mouse also worked well set to 6,400dpi.
Even at 4K, you'll likely not want to go much higher.
In the software proper, it was easy to reprogram the on-mouse lighting, but the control may be more granular than you like.
It's possible to program the side stripes down to little discrete-LED segments (10 in all each side), and the scroll wheel into two zones.
All of these zones can be independently programmed.
It's easy enough to do; it just depends on your patience level.
Among High-End Mice, a Tough Fight
So, how does the Aorus M5 shape up against the competition? Two of the Gigabyte's key competitors at this price point are the HyperX Pulsefire Surge($44.46 at Amazon) and Razer Basilisk, both at the same $69.99 MSRP as the Aorus M5.
All three gaming mice have a 1,000Hz polling rate and a maximum resolution setting of 16,000dpi.
Among this trio, the HyperX Pulsefire Surge and Aorus M5 are the most similar.
The left and right mouse buttons on both feature same-rated Omron switches, and they both have a similar line of RGB LEDs around the edge.
The Pulsefire Surge's RGB LED stripes are split into 32 independently addressable zones, but that mouse lacks RGB LEDs on the palm rest and scroll wheel.
The Aorus M5 therefore has more overall lit area, and it has the much more substantial advantage of adjustable weight.
Razer's Basilisk lags behind the Aorus M5 in a few ways.
No Omron switches or removable weights, for one; the Basilisk also has fewer RGB LEDs (which may be a plus or minus, depending on your tastes).
The only lights on the Basilisk are on the scroll wheel and on the palm rest, which will be obscured by your hand.
The Basilisk's main unique hardware quality is a DPI button that you can swap out for a smaller one, but the build quality and ergonomic shaping seems a step above on the Basilisk, and the Razer software is a bit more mature and polished.
List prices aside, the Basilisk also holds a price advantage as I write this; it was $52 on Amazon and remains our Editors' Choice in this space.
It's also a solid option if you don't have the extra cash.
But if you can spare the extra $15 to $20 to dish out for the Aorus M5, bling is your thing, and you don't mind a spot, perhaps, of supergluing, the richer feature set gives the Aorus M5 some appeal, as well.
We'd like to see the price drop a bit, though, to compete better with some of the market leaders.
The Bottom Line
Gigabyte's Aorus M5 is a bright, feature-packed gaming-mouse competitor.
The rich feature set includes removable weights and mood lighting with robust programmability.
