Black switches are basically heavier versions of the reds. It’s a quiet and light switch (45G actuation force) which is very easy to actuate, making it an often chosen option for gaming.īlack: Another linear option. Red: A linear switch, and still one of the most popular choices out there. They produce a lot of switches, but we’ll go over the most often used ones here. The company itself is even older than that, being founded by Walter Cherry in 1953. Cherry MXĬherry MX is one of the ‘OG’ gaming keyboard switch manufacturers, which makes sense since they’ve been producing keyboard switches since the early 1980’s. In this list we talk about the required actuation force (which basically means how hard you have to press the key for it to be registered), the actuation point (how far the key has to physically travel for it to activate) and the total travel distance (how far the key goes before bottoming out). For reviews on specific switches and keyboards you can always check our review section. Do note that this isn’t a review list: we’re merely trying to gather all the popular switches in one spot to help you decide on what you would want. For now we’ve got the most commonly used switches on here, but of course we’ll keep updating this article in the future. We’ll go over the most popular (gaming) switch manufacturers and briefly highlight what features they offer on their different switches.

But that’s one of the beautiful things about mechanical keyboards: you can just go with what you prefer.īack when mechanical keyboards started getting popular in gaming there used to be only a handful of switch manufacturers, but nowadays there’s almost too many to list. Plenty of gamers really love their clicky switches so this really is a matter of preference. It is sometimes said that for gaming you’ll want linear switches (since they require less force to actuate) and for typing you’ll want tactile/clicky switches, but in practice this isn’t always the case. Tactile switches have a noticeable ‘bump’ when you press them, and clicky switches also have a bump, but come with an audible clicking sound. Linear switches have a consistent and smooth feeling when pressed, with no real bump or resistance when the key press registers. Generally speaking, there are three different types of switches.

This, in itself, poses an advantage over regular rubber dome keyboards but the beauty of mechanical keyboards is that there’s a whole world of different keyboard switches out there. Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, have a complete switch (made up out of the housing, stem, and spring on top of which the actual keycap is placed) per key which provides a much snappier, more precise, and overall more pleasant feeling typing sensation. Each time you press a key you depress the dome, causing the top of the dome to make contact with the circuitry on the bottom of the keyboard, which completes the circuit and thus registers a key has been pressed. The keys are then placed on top of those domes. Rubber dome keyboards work by putting a sheet of of rubber over the keyboard circuitry with a little dome (hence the name) over the space where each key is, with the inside of every dome being coated in conductive materials.

Rubber dome keyboards (which is what most cheaper/consumer grade keyboards are) and mechanical keyboards. Let’s first clarify: there are two main ‘types’ of keyboard, generally speaking. This might sounds as if it’s something trivial: after all a key press is a key press, but it’s anything but trivial. When people are talking about mechanical keyboards they always mention the type of switches that the keyboard has.

Tactile vs linear vs clicky