Performance

This is my second time with the Cherry MX Speed (Silver) switches, and my previous experience with these helped me a lot here. For those expecting a Cherry MX Red switch with shorter actuation and travel distance, you might be surprised. While actuation and travel time are indeed shorter at 1.2 mm and 3.5 mm respectively, bottoming-out force is higher, as seen in the force diagrams below (Cherry MX Speed on the left and Cherry MX Red on the right):

In fact, a Haldex tension force meter showed that the average actuation force for the K95 Platinum was 44.74 cN as opposed to the 44.41 cN for the Cherry MX Red switches in the Corsair Strafe RGB keyboard I have here. These numbers are an average measurement taken off twenty switches on each keyboard, and it was good to see Cherry having good QC on their switches. Bottoming-out switches on the K95 Platinum took an average of 70.65 cN and 61.60 cN on the Strafe RGB with MX Red switches. So even with the same keyboard, the MX Speed (Silver) switches will feel and sound ever so slightly different when compared to MX Red switches.

The direct competition would be switches from Kailh, Razer, and Steelseries with similarly low actuation distances. At 1.2 mm actuation distance and 45 cN actuation force, I do not recommend resting your fingers on the keyboard as it is fairly easy to trigger a keystroke by accident. Subjectively, I could not feel any actions occurring substantially faster than with other switches, but until we have a way to quantify this consistently, I will leave it to our readers to decide whether these are faster or not.

Performance of the keyboard itself was fine, aside from the mixed macro-execution issues brought up on the previous page. A negative, it seems to be a result of Windows (7/8/10) possibly deleting some Corsair drivers when CUE is installed. Corsair says this is a rare issue, so odds are you may not experience it, but it is still something to keep in mind should you rather want to wait to see if a fix that'll ensure there are no problems on any system comes out. Another thing worth mentioning is that muscle memory makes it hard to get used to the K95 Platinum's layout, with me reaching out for the G-keys instead of Esc or CTRL. But within a week of using it as I normally would, including typing out a review or two, I was back to my usual typing speed of 95-105 WPM. Accuracy did take a hit, but once I stopped resting my fingers on the keys, it went back up again. So take some time and get used to these switches.


Above is a sound sample of me typing on this keyboard, and for some context, here are the Bloody B720 with linear optical switches and the Tesoro Gram Spectrum RGB with Kailh Agile Red switches that both actuate at 45 cN and 1.5 mm. As always, note that the sound of a keyboard depends not just on the switches themselves, but the keycaps and the keyboard's base plate/case material, so judge keyboards as a whole as opposed to just the switches themselves.


NKRO tested successfully using Aqua's test, and Switch Hitter confirmed no chatter with these keys in the three weeks of testing I had before the review.

Note also that the K95 Platinum comes with Cherry MX Brown RGB switches as well, and those will feel different, with a tactile bump at actuation and a longer actuation and travel distance of 2 mm and 4 mm respectively. The other features will be identical to this sample. There is a third option for North American customers in terms of aesthetics - a gunmetal finish instead of the black here - but it does nothing as far as performance goes, so go with what you like.