In the past few years, every major graphics card manufacturer has been counting money until their hands cramped. As soon as graphics cards are shipped, they will be cashed off the shelves, making them make money no matter how they sell them. Of course, a big reason for this comes from overheated demand from miners, which has caused scalpers to join the sweeps. This phenomenon is not limited to Taiwan, but occurs all over the world. Some merchants noticed the frustration of players at this time, so they changed their thinking and launched a thing that although the shape is similar, it is not actually a graphics card, but a graphics card-shaped keycap. A Chinese online store is selling ROG Strix graphics card-shaped keycaps, which can be applied to common Cherry MX switch keyboards:
▲The world’s smallest graphics card…it’s not, it’s a keycap that imitates the shape of a graphics card (Image source）
Players all over the world are lamenting that there are no new graphics cards to buy. Players who previously disliked the RTX 2000 series graphics cards for not being cheap enough are now regretting it. Not only has this phenomenon not been alleviated over time, but it has also become increasingly serious.
Although some players will choose to use cheap graphics cards on the second-hand market, the recent second-hand market is full of graphics cards that may have been eliminated by mining farms. These graphics cards are usually eliminated after a long period of virtual currency “mining”. The harsh environment of the mines often greatly reduces the stability of these second-hand graphics cards, which also reduces people’s willingness to choose second-hand graphics cards:
▲The price of graphics cards is still not cheap, and there is even a huge gap compared with the recommended selling price (Image source）
Since it has been difficult to buy graphics cards of any kind for such a long time, I have no choice but to have fun with it. The Chinese online store “zFrontier” recently launched a rectangular keycap in the shape of a ROG Strix graphics card. Not only does the keycap look stylish, it also has a rotatable fan (of course, it’s just rotatable, not a few ultra-small fans). It looks like a scaled-down model of the graphics card:
▲In fact, this keycap is currently out of stock. Perhaps the manufacturer did not expect the product to have such potential (Image source）
Even the outer packaging deliberately caters to the packaging design of ASUS graphics cards. There is a color box with the ASUS and ROG trademarks printed on it, and a black product box with the ASUS trademark stamped inside the color box. Treating a keycap with such seriousness, regardless of the fact that such a keycap only has a gimmick of appearance, is worthy of praise for the manufacturer’s attempt to make players who buy the keycaps have the same feeling of buying a new graphics card when they unbox it:
▲Even the outer box is imitated, very thoughtfully (Image source）
This small keycap is priced at RMB 399 (approximately NT$1,744), which is about one-tenth of the recommended selling price of a real graphics card. Of course the keycaps are very expensive, but after all, everything from the appearance design to the packaging is so exquisite, so they must have spent a lot of money to obtain ASUS’s authorization:
▲There is also the Republic of Players English trademark on the side of the keycap (Image source）
Of course, this is not the only one with similar keycaps. If you use Graphics Card Key Caps as the search keyword, you can find graphics cards of various shapes on shopping websites such as Ebay and AliExpress… Oh no, they are keycaps. You can easily find keycaps designed in the shape of NVIDIA public version cards, or keycaps designed in other common graphics cards. You can choose from them. And there is no scalper hype problem, unless these keycaps can also count Ethereum and Bitcoin.
Of course, these keycaps are more purposeful for viewing and playing than actually being installed on the keyboard. In fact, when used, I am afraid that the feel will not be better than common keycaps. However, if your keyboard can accommodate these strange-looking gadgets, it may make this keyboard more praised by fellow gamers.
Source: KOCPC Chinese