Cherry MX Board Silent Review

Usage
We really put the MX Board silent through it’s paces. Primarily the target market for this deck is the professional market and while we certainly used it for typing purposes (i.e. this review) we also ran it through a good number of hours of gaming. Of the 104 keys you can simultaneously press 14 of them without missing a stroke thanks to N-Key rollover technology. This should and did make for some great gaming.

To break things down, let’s first talk about typing. There is no doubt that this board was meant as typists weapon of choice. The angle of the wedge combined with an optimal key height and spacing makes for effortless, tireless, and accurate typing. While it’s our belief that you can adjust to practically any typing surface if needed, the MX Board Silent is here to say that not all decks are created equally and adjusting shouldn’t be necessary. It’s a flawless typing machine. Additionally your coworkers or family members will certainly be thankful that you now have a board that doesn’t make all those ‘clickety clackety’ noises. Check out the video below to see for yourself just how quiet this board really is:

As far a gaming is concerned the Mx Board Silent doesn’t hesitate to step up to the plate. While there are definitely features that you may find yourself missing, the one thing you can count on is this keyboard picking up all your key presses even when spamming for a reload while diving for cover in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The MX Silent Reds do a good job of picking up my keypresses, my opinion is that they aren’t quite as satisfying as a standard mechanical switch. They really do have a good stroke and feel, but there is something visceral about the click of regular mechanical key and I miss it most when gaming. Of course anyone trying to live around you smashing keys is never going to miss it.

Final Thoughts
The MX Board Silent delivers exactly what it promises, a silent mechanical keyboard experience. It does so with the style and grace of keyboards of yesteryear spruced up with modern switches and components. And that’s really what this deck is all about. It’s the throwback look and feel and there is nothing about it that we would change. It’s a big, heavy, clunky design; it’s perfect. Modernizing and sticking extra keys and wheels for direct functions is convenient to be sure, but that isn’t what you buy this keyboard for. You buy this for the simplicity, the aesthetic, and are rewarded with a nice piece of equipment for your trouble. While it might seem like an oxymoron, silent and mechanical switch, the G80-3000 equipped with MX Red Silent switches stubbornly refuses to create so much as a single clack while still offering the user a satisfying travel and actuation point. The board comes in beige and black with both MX Red Silent and MX Black Silent switches available.

Aside from the lack of flashy add ons that we are used to seeing on gaming keyboards there really isn’t anything missing from this board. Additionally there is nothing here that was executed poorly. The only potential bugbear is the price. This beige queen is $150 USD. It’s a bit hard to swallow when you take into account the real lack of features that are typically found on mechanical boards at this price point. No, you don’t want those features. But you shouldn’t have to pay for them either. We would like to see the MX Board Silent back down around the $100 range.

Pros:
– Silent mechanical operation
– Superbly pulled off old school design
– Smooth accurate typing
– 14 key N-Key Rollover
– Solid construction

Cons:
– Features quite don’t justify price