Cherry has launched a new kind of mechanical keyswitch today. The Cherry MX Speed (Silver) keyswitches are designed to be the fastest on the market, made to appeal to both fast typists and PC gamers like. In Cherry’s own testing, the MX Speed switches were 40 per cent faster than standard Cherry MX switches.

Major design decisions implemented in Cherry MX Speed mechanical keyswitches include the actuation point of 1.2mm – resulting in extremely short travel to contact and the low activation force of 45cN. Working in concert with Cherry’s gold-crosspoint contact technology users benefit from high switching frequencies and a typical bounce time of under 1ms. As usual for Cherry MX keys, a durability figure of 50 million keystrokes with constant pressure quality is advertised.

Cherry MX Speed switches will be available in opaque (black/silver) and transparent RGB varieties. The RGB switches include a switch cover with an integrated lens and large scattering surface combined with an SMD LED which “ensures a high luminosity of all 16.7 million colours of the RGB spectrum”.

The 'serious typists', which the new Cherry MX Speed switches are alleged to appeal to, might be a little disappointed to learn that PC Gaming components and peripherals specialist Corsair has six months exclusivity in supplying products based upon the new keyswitches. Predictably, the first such product will be a member of Corsair’s gaming keyboard line-up, more about that later...