Coolermaster Quickfire XT Gaming Keyboard Review

Introduction

Mechanical keyboards are more popular than ever with the gaming community, their high precision and high quality make them well suited to many things, but their prowess in gaming is where they really shine. Cooler Master have crafted many of the best mechanical gaming keyboards on the market and their latest effort, the Quick Fire XT looks set to expand on their already exciting range.

Packed full of features that make it an ideal choice for gaming, as well as general day-to-day use, the Quite Fire XT looks like a great product, but the most exciting thing of all has to be the price tag. Available for just under £72 including shipping, which is obviously expensive, but still representative of cheap for a mechanical gaming keyboard, many of which cost in excess for £100. The cost is often a reflection of the switches used, Cherry MX are not cheap, but in terms of quality and performance, you get what you pay for.

The Quick Fire XT comes in a choice of popular Cherry MX switches, Red, Green, Brown, or Blue. The model we have in the office today is the MX Blue variant, but keep in mind that availability of certain switches will vary depending on region. MX Blue are a pretty specialist choice for keyboards, they’re often quite loud as they offer a strong tactile “click” when pressed, this gives a satisfying tactile sensation while typing, but is often regarded as noisy switch as the click is certainly audible as well as physical.

The Quick Fire XT comes nicely packaged in the usual CM Storm colours and features a stylish picture of the keyboard on the front of the box as well as a small picture that details the switch type (MX Blue).

Around the back you’ll find a quick run down of the major features of the keyboard, but we’ll take a close look at those in a moment.

Everything you need to get you started is included in the box, a simple user guide, a key cap removal tool, some custom key caps, a braided USB cable and a USB to PS2 adaptor.