Cherry Unveils MX SPEED, The Fastest Mechanical Keyboard Switch For Gamers And Professionals

When mechanical keyboards hit the PC gaming scene a number of years ago, it became clear very quickly that there was a preferred choice for switches: CHERRY. While CHERRY existed long before its switches found their way into gaming keyboards, the company has really skyrocketed in popularity in recent years as many top-flight peripheral vendors continue to revolve their product lines around the German company's switches.

CHERRY's MX SPEED RGB Keyboard Switches

It's become clear in recent years that just because CHERRY already offers a huge number of switches to peripheral vendors, there's still some room for innovation. A couple of years ago, we saw the introduction of CHERRY RGB, a switch that quickly founds its way into a number of keyboards. Will we see the same thing happen with its brand-new switch, MX SPEED? Not initially at least, as the company has teamed up with Corsair to become the exclusive launch partner.

CHERRY's MX SPEED switch is similar to the MX Red as it's linear in travel, with no bump or click. Red is typically favored by gamers because of its ultra-low resistance, allowing them to hit many keys in a very short time. MX SPEED improves upon this by putting the actuation (key press) at 1.2mm, rather than 2.0mm. As simple math would imply, that means an MX SPEED key will activate 40% quicker than an MX Red switch, which is crazy fast.

If a 1.2mm actuation sounds a little too low, consider the fact that CHERRY has retained the MX Red's activation force of 45g. That means that while the key will feel the same to the touch, it will activate sooner which is something that could be made very obvious if you've enjoyed many energy drinks during your gaming sessions.

Corsair's series that features these new MX SPEED switches is called RAPIDFIRE, and includes the K70 RGB, K70 (non-RGB), and K65. The top-end K70 RGB will run you about $170, while the tenkeyless K65 RGB version will cost $150. The non-RGB K70 drops the price another $20 to settle at $130.