Performance

The Speed-RX mats are for the soft mat enthusiast. The thick base is nice and adds important weight to the mats which helps them stay in place during intense gaming. The combination of a thick base and a soft top mat is not something new, but it just proves that if it works do not fix it.

The top layer has an extremely fine texture to it much like we saw on the Meduza mat from EpicGear. The weave seems a bit tighter and the finish near the edges is extremely good which both makes it comfortable for the wrist, but also helps with the durability of the mat. The Speed-RX’s edges is definitely not as durable as that of the Zowie mats with stitched edges, but then again the conventional edge option is more comfortable.

The small Speed-RX is definitely good for the casual mid to high sensitivity gamer who does not want or perhaps has space for a full sized gaming mat. The medium is where the fun is at for any serious mid sensitivity gamer. It is not too big and not too small. If you have the space you might want to opt for the medium even if you do play with a high sensitivity, because there is a greater safety margin.

Since it is a soft cloth mat the large version will probably get the biggest following. The thick base and well performing top layer is a good combination and it provides decent dampening for when you reset the mouse on the mat.

Due to the tighter weave it seems that the friction is somewhat more uniform when starting and stopping the mouse which is great for control. Especially when compared to the older generation SteelSeries soft mats and the recently launched EpicGear Meduza mat. The new surface is a win all around right from durability over glide to dampening when resetting the mouse on the mat.

Some black soft mats give odd results in combination with some modern sensors. The Speed-RX performs well with the CM Storm Sentinel Advance II (Avago ADNS-9800), the Zowie AM (Avago ADNS-3090), and the ROCCAT Kone[+] (Avago ADNS-9500).

Also the more old school mice like the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 1.1 and 3.0 work flawlessly on the surface. Both modern and the older optical mice seem to work fine on this mat. One could of course worry that the new surface texture and fin knitting would impede tracking performance, but according to our tests this surface type works just as well as any of the older type cloth mats.