Gateron X V3 Switch Review

While I can objectively recognize that it has only been give or take a month since the last full length review dropped, it very much has subjectively felt like multiple months of time for me. In just the four short weeks since the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE Switch Review dropped, I’ve crammed in a hiking vacation, a multi-day work trip, searching for houses, dealing with court and lawyers, and even attended a little old event by the name of ‘Keycon’ a few weeks ago. You know, just a run-of-the-mill set of adventures for anyone on any given month. In and amongst all of this traveling which I can’t afford to spend too much more time going over here at the start of this review, though, I found myself constantly missing the content work and wanting to get back into the groove of writing for you all. I really do mean it when I say that writing about switches has become such a big part of my routine and with as jumbled as things have been throughout this month (and the one before that) it hasn’t been the easiest to stay on top of it all. However, despite all of the inconsistencies in the ground I’ve been treading on, I was so excited to get back into it all that I ended up writing an additional short article in addition to this review that will be debuting only a few days away from today on July 1st. While the article itself isn’t about switches and so thus it is a little bit outside of my norm, it is definitely still keyboard related and digs up a fun historical documentation nugget in the community that I feel like doesn’t receive enough attention and has been a bit underappreciated for the dedication shown to it over the years. Please do let me know what you all think of it when this mysterious article goes live here in a few weeks as I’ve been contemplating branching out into more keyboard stuff beyond switches in my short articles. I feel like this is the perfect testing ground to see how well that this would turn out. Or if you don’t feel like leaving any directly positive or negative feedback, you could also just reach out to tell me I write too much irrespective of the subject – that seems to be a popular enough take amongst those commenting.

Figure 1: My heat map of cell service from the past month would be worth of a traveling salesman problem I bet.

Speaking of sharing too much, before I dive into this review I did want to briefly go back and touch on the trip to Keycon like I normally do after meetups. While I’ve been in the hobby long enough to see multiple Keycons come and go, I can’t say that I was ever fortunate enough to attend one despite having been to well over a dozen different meetups now throughout that same span in time. To me Keycon always felt not only far away but just somehow bigger from what I could see – more people, bigger names, increasingly neat artisans and boards, so on. Keycon 2025 definitely lived up to that expectation and it was great to finally attend one. With something like 400 people crammed in and around a venue that felt like we were practically standing on top of the thousands of keycaps and well over a hundred keyboards, it was truly a dizzying array of options that made its 7 hour run time feel like a blink of an eye. I feel like I talked to every single person, saw every single keycap, touched every single board, and yet also managed to miss more than the majority of what was actually there to engage with. To even further add to the excitement that oxymoronically warped my perception of time there, I was also fortunate enough to have given a panel presentation there where I not only got to talk about force curves for a half hour or so, but also got to introduce the beginnings of my work on quantifying tactile switches. Following this recorded link and this link for my actual slide deck, you too will get to see the very first attempt I’m aware of in the hobby of mass quantifying tactile switches and how that can yield some pretty surprising results when done with a large enough set of force curves. (And yes, I will eventually get to writing this up in an article here in the next month or so as things hopefully slow down again.) As for the lucky readers out there who were able to attend this presentation in person, my sincerest thanks go out to you for both showing up and for all of the interactions we had before and after the presentation. The gifts, the feedback, the questions, and all of the ideas that were tossed out still are rattling around in my head to this day a few weeks later and while I can’t promise I will get to every single one of our discussed ideas in quick time, you’ll have to trust me that I was listening. In the event you need some proof that, take this review as solid evidence of such! These explicit switches were actually chosen by me for review because of a question that I was asked at the meetup that is still circling my mind a bit…

Figure 2: Not even half of the venue if you include the presentation/panel speaking area as well.

Figure 3: Somewhat loose proof I was there with boxes of odds and end, free stickers, and one very brightly lit Cherry MX Northern Light box.

Figure 4: Even stronger proof I was there and actively talking about switches. Feels a bit weird to dox myself like this but you all could have figured it out if you just clicked the link to the video anyhow.

Switch Background

Part way into my Keycon 2025 panel presentation ‘The Data Underneath Your Fingertips’ and somewhere more or less around the part where I began quantitatively comparing linear switches, I was stopped by keyboard community member iamtootallforthis and asked a rather valid question about data variability. Paraphrasing a bit, he effectively asked me how consistent or variable my measurements and force curves would be going from one switch to another copy of that same switch. If I take a single Cherry MX Black, another one from the same production batch, one from a handful of years before or after these were made, and so on, how similar would their measured vales actually be? While I unfortunately didn’t have a great answer for him at the time, it’s certainly not due to a lack of consideration of such an interesting thought on my part. In fact, switch to switch variation is something I contend with and discuss pretty openly in almost every single switch review I’ve done here – it’s just never in a measured, quantitative way. (This is of course despite the fact that for all of my full length reviews I do take force curves for three different switches from the batch as well as do replicates of both measurements and switches for my component measurements.) Without having sat down and actually scrutinized any data I’ve collected to see any of these discrepancies actually exist, it’s really hard for me to comment about switch variability other than simply recognizing that it clearly does exist based on the community’s actions. Everyone who has built more than a keyboard or two before, myself included, has “cherry picked” for the best switches in their boards and/or chosen to not use one switch from a particular batch because it felt either way overlubed or underlubed compared to everything else. On a much larger scale I can even recognize that this cherry picking and community awareness of long term switch to switch inconsistencies is institutionalized through people seeking out “vintage” or “NOS” Cherry switches and paying a premium for those over newer releases. To pretend that switch to switch variation in feeling and measurements doesn’t exist simply because I’ve not taken the time to try and dig into the data and find it would be absolutely wrong of me to do. However, I really struggle in addressing the topic altogether because trying to pin differences between switches down to their production time or manner is really hard to do. Whether you believe me or not, the true difficulty in this is not measuring or comparing the data on the switches – it’s just acquring specifically different switches by which you can make a comparison.

How does one adequately address switch to switch variation across batches in a measured, numerical, and logical fashion through some length of time? It’s actually quite easy in theory – you acquire, track, and measure dozens of different switches from each production run squeezed out by a manufacturer. In practice this may as well be impossible and you’re more than welcome to try to do this yourself if you don’t believe me. Even if manufacturers store this information somewhere, which almost certainly not all manufacturers do, they have no incentive to share the details by which each production batch of their switches were produced for purchased quantities of anything less than bulk orders that only go to massive storefronts like Cannonkeys or Novelkeys. Even then, whatever batching information that is present on the bulk bags or boxes for these companies is never descriptive enough to know when it was produced relative to other production lots and only helps them identify suspect groups of switches if any quality control issues arise. This problem also scales up a bit further when you consider that rather popular switches (or those that are most likely to have noticeable batch to batch variation) get multiple production runs and likely occupy more than just one set of production lines over a prolonged period of time. As time moves on machines break down, molds get warn out, and the actual people running those machines switch out and do things differently than the original crews all at different speeds for different lines. Think of just how many different batches of something like Novelkeys Creams have been produced. Dozens? Hundreds? Do we know if the very first batch of switches from the first machine will feel and measure up to be the same as the fifteenth or thirty ninth batch ones from the nth machine? We can’t even say which switches come from which production batch, much less get this specific! If we consider even older, more famous switches like Cherry MX Blacks, this problem expontentiates in complexity quite quickly. If you weren’t convinced that mold degradation over a handful of years of production like with the Novelkeys Creams wouldn’t be significant enough, we know for a fact that Cherry has worn their molds out to the extent that they’ve had to renew, retool, and even replace some over the years. With multiple machines this could mean you could have two identical looking switches produced at the same time with entirely different molds and parts. However, without any clear documentation or sharing of when, where, or how this occurred we have no idea even to the nearest five years when these sorts of changes are taking place. Without a clear, defined, and well described way of marking when certain switches were produced – something which would also likely need to be tracked from the very beginning in intimate partnership with a large vendor or manufacturer – there’s no way that anyone can effectively talk about long term batch variation with any specificity. The only way this good be easily done publicly would be if companies would just label each of their batches of switches differently somehow. Well, about that…

Figure 5: ...such an idea might be accomplishable like this...

First introduced back in 2021 via a limited eastern release that soon thereafter blossomed into a worldwide release, the Gateron “X” switches were pitched as a newer, smoother, and more up to date version of the ever classic Gateron Yellow linears. Featuring improved molds, polished stem rails, and a tiny ‘x’ on the underside of the bottom housings, these switches were not only going to be marked differently than Gateron’s other offerings but also sold differently as well. Priced a bit higher than the budget stuff and a fair bit under Gateron’s premium offerings at the time, these switches initially came across as a sort of mid-ground version of the Yellows that were marked as such for ease of recognition. Coming and going after one production run, it wasn’t until 2023 that this idea of a mid-ground Gateron Yellow switch was revisited again by Gateron in the form of a beige takeover inspired Gateron X V2. Featuring an identical ‘x’ marking on the bottom housing and pricing as the first versions of these switches, the ‘V2’ X switches also came and went with a single production batch and very few people thought of them as anything other than a recolored, more thematically relevant version of the same switches. However, by the third time the Gateron X line was revisited in 2025, it started to click. Rather than being classically colored or beige inspired, the third run of Gateron X switches featured a bright orange aesthetic instead that stood out from the first and second runs of these switches. While most people, myself included, have referred to these as “V3” Gateron X switches, they actually aren’t any different than the first two versions of these switches – they’re just the third production run by Gateron. Probably more aptly named “R1”, “R2”, and “R3”, the classic yellow, beige, and orange versions of the Gateron X switches are Gateron labeling their different production runs over time to help consumers differentiate between them. Whether the explicit idea for such came by way of Gateron or by way of a vendor or direct customer pushing them to, it appears as if this run of switches, as well as the already freshly added reddish-purple “V4” Gateron X switches, are the first real tangible efforts by a manufacturer to publicly differentiate their otherwise identical switches over time in a way that isn’t just them saying it out loud in marketing. Sure this won’t address all of the ways in which true knowledge of when switches were produced or under what conditions their molds were made will eternally escape us, but it’s a step in the right direction. This is Gateron enabling us to explore the exact kind of question that iamtootallforthis asked before – and they’ve even been kind enough to stick to it from 2021 to 2025! For that reason, I think the Gateron X and their other colored siblings were more than worth an exploration.

Figure 6: Gateron X V1 (Left), V2 (Center) and V3 (Right).

Due to the fact that the orange colored versions of these switches are just as readily described online as “Gateron X” as any of their other variants, it’s kind of hard to say explicitly when these were released. By my best estimates, the V3 Orange colored Gateron X Switches first made their debut sometime as round April or May of 2025 as the third entry of the Gateron X family. While quickly overshadowed by a reddish purple V4 Gateron X that was first introduced in June of 2025, the V3 versions are particularly noteworthy in that they are the only ones of the first four versions currently available as of the time of writing to feature factory lubing. Despite this, they are identically priced to that of the V1, V2, and V4 versions at a $0.49 per switch and available from a wide array of companies from all around the world including Cannonkeys, Swagkeys, proto[Typist], iLumkb, and many more. While I can’t say for certain how long the Orange V3 versions of the Gateron X switches will remain around given their impending overshadow by the V4 versions, the entirety of the X family appears to be one which will live on for many more years to come given its historical releases in 2021, 2023, and 2025. My personal, completely unsubstantiated guess is that the 2027 versions will be green.

Figure 7: Cannonkeys' Gateron X V4 sales page as of the time of writing this review.

Gateron X V3 Performance

Note: Given that the Gateron X switches are marketed as being identical across their various “versions”, there will be comparisons between V1, V2, and V3 Gateron X switches in the following sections. All mentions of V1 and V2 parts and/or measurements will be explicitly defined where used. Any further discussion should be understood to be about the orange, V3 versions of the Gateron X switches.

Appearance

At the highest level, the Gateron X V3 switches come in a two-tone color combination with a milky white translucent top housing and a matching creamsicle orange stem and bottom housing. While the initial Gateron X V1 switches had mismatched stems and bottom housings, which were yellow and black, respectively, it appears as if this two-tone combination is the planned color scheme moving forward for all future iterations of the Gateron X switches as both the beige V2 and reddish-purple V4 switches have stems and bottom housings which match in color alongside milky white top housings. While these switches may not be immediately recognizable as being “Gateron X” linears from afar despite their similar trend in color schemes over the past few years, the V3 versions don’t exactly have a color scheme that lines up with any other switches available as of the time of writing. Digging as far back into my memory as I can, the only switches which come to mind similar in terms of color to these Gateron X V3 switches would be something like the original TTC Orange switches from before 2018, though even those are a bit more of a saturated orange color. Despite any confusion that the colorway may cause about the origin of these switches, they can easily be identified as being of the Gateron X line by simply flipping them over and noting the small ‘x’ present on the very top flat edge of the stem hole in the bottom housing. Beyond this point, though, these switches are interesting from an appearance perspective as they feature a lot of classical Gateron component designs that are exceedingly rare to find in new switches produced by them in 2025. These “vintage” details worth discussing, as well as any other sub-part features of note in the Gateron X V3 switches may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 8: Gateron X V3 switches and their components.

The milky white, translucent top housings of the Gateron X V3 switches are a truly welcomed sight for the sore eyes of a switch collector and reviewer like me. In an era with increasingly obtuse switch designs, a glut of magnetic switches with all manner of weird stem shapes and integrations, and ever changing branding and decorative capabilities for every manufacturer, there is something that is just so refreshingly concise about the classic top housing designs from Gateron. There’s no inverted nameplates. The through-switch LED/diode slot is only a thin rectangle inside of centered circular cutout. The housings are made out of that same sweet translucent material that the ever classic and community adored milky Gateron switches were made out of. Even the insides are just like we all left them behind those years ago with two mold markings in the upper left- and right-hand corners in the form of single capital letters and slider rails that are slightly rounded on the north side and flat on the south side. Hell, even the little wall feature around the small LED/diode slot on the inside of the housings are there just like the old structures not only in the Gateron X V2 and V1 switches, but all of the old classic Gateron housings. Maybe we didn’t quite appreciate the simplicity in these designs enough when they were in our faces for all of those years.

Figure 9: Gateron X V3 top housing exterior showing 'GATERON' nameplate and small, circularly restricted through-switch LED slot.

Figure 10: Gateron X V3 top housing interior design showing mold markings in the upper left- and right- hand corners underneath the nameplate and identical structures to other classic Gateron KS-3 type switch architectures.

Figure 11: Side by side top housing exterior comparison between the Gateron X V1 (Left), V2 (Center), and V3 (Right) switches emphasizing their detail for detail similarity.

Moving next to the creamsicle orange stems of the Gateron X V3 switches, I had to try extra hard to not let my nostalgia override my objective recording of the features at hand. However, it is really damn hard to not let my personal enjoyment shine through a bit when I get the chance to revisit classic MX style stem constructions in a switch built in 2025. I mean really the non-tapered, full length slider rails, the non-tiered, normal length stem poles, and the small ejector circles on the front plates of the stems are all features that I can look back and remember poring over with such fascination in those early days and it’s hard not to appreciate them here. (Especially since it’s uncommon to see even one or two of these features in a switch’s stem these days.) True to form the X V3 switch stems are identical in shape, size, and details as those of the V1 and V2 stems with their only difference being their color and a slight presence of factory lubing. While Gateron has waxed and waned in their degree of lube application to linear switches over the years since the Gateron X line of switches was first introduced, the X V3 stems are definitely less aggressively lubed than some of their historical premium big hitter like Gateron Oil Kings, but noticeably more smooth and evenly covered in lube than classic KS-3 style switches from back in the day.

Figure 12: Front and back side of the Gateron X V3 stems showing their non-tapered slider rails, non-tiered center pole, and slight presence of factory lubing.

Figure 13: Side by side stem comparison between the Gateron X V1 (Left), V2 (Center), and V3 (Right) switches emphasizing, again, their detail for detail similarity.

Finally arriving at the matching creamsicle orange bottom housings of the Gateron X V3 switches, I’m also glad to report that they are also identical to that of the X V2 and X V1 switches down to the tiniest of details. Based on this fact, as well as the general marketing of these switches, I am almost confident that these truly are the same molds that the original Gateron X V1 switches were made with back in 2021. The overlapping similarities exist internally in the form of the in polished slider rails that have small, centered circular bumps at the bottom that act as dampening pads and the mold ejector circles in the base of the housings. Externally, the similarities continue with capital letter mold markings in the first and third gaps between LED/diode hole slots, an anticounterfeit ‘GATERON’ emboss between the metal PCB pins, PCB mounting pins, and the eponymous ‘x’ marking located on the stem pole hole underside of the housings. Everything is present in these housings that you’d expect of a classic Gateron housing design and they really do well round out a time capsule like feeling for exploring the insides of the switch.

Figure 14: Gateron X V3 bottom housing interior design showing dampening pads at the base of slider rails, mold ejector circles, and LED/diode slot restrictions. Do note that the leaf is not naturally bent this way and was accidentally tweaked by me while setting up for this photo.

Figure 15: Gateron X V3 bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins, GATERON anticounterfeit emboss, two single letter mold markings, and the eponymous 'x' mark in the center of the bottom housing.

Figure 16: Side by side bottom housing exterior comparison between the Gateron X V1 (Left), V2 (Center), and V3 (Right) switches emphasizing their detail for detail similarity.

While direct comparisons of the measurements for the various Gateron X iterations that I presently have my hands on would make a bit more sense in the ‘Measurement’ section below than this one, the overwhelming similarities seen in the photos above led me to want to include this table here as well. These switches even measure out to the detail to be about as close to one another as you could expect for switches made in 2021, 2023, and 2025 for the V1, V2, and V3 switches, respectively.

Figure 17: Gateron X V1, V2, and V3 switch component measurement comparisons.

Push Feel

On the whole, these Gateron X V3 switches are truly no frills, bread and butter basic linear switches that drive home a feeling and overall under finger presence that really only classic switches seem to capture in this day and age. Coming in at 3.955 mm of stem travel and 65.3 gf of bottom out weight, the Gateron X V3 switches are only technically above the average stem travel and weight of all of the linear switches that I’ve measured to date because of the sheer number of shortened travel, stem bottom out linears that have saturated the market over the last handful of years. For the longest time, a full 4.00 mm travel and modest ~65 gf. bottom out were the platonic, western ideal metrics of a linear switch and the kind of feeling those two metrics provide in tandem are what a lot of the larger mechanical keyboard hobby foundations were built on. Much like many of those old and classic switches, the housing collisions on the Gateron X V3 switches are firm, semi-hard, and yet somewhat muted despite not feeling mushy at all. The topping outs are a bit thinner and stand out from the bottom outs a bit, though overall they’re balanced enough and the gap between the topping and bottoming out doesn’t wildly drift too far throughout different actuation speeds. In between the two ends of the switch, the X V3 switches have a well applied factory lubing that is consistent, thin, not overly noticeable, and not really all that faithful to the factory lubing of the old times I keep referring back to. This one small detail is really the only thing that has been slightly modified from the past, with Gateron’s internal development over the last decade seemingly endlessly edging closer towards perfect lubing of switches. Even the faults of the Gateron X V3 switches are classical with the housing collisions being a bit inconsistent from switch to switch or slightly rough at the edges. As well, despite the factory lubing being applied much more deliberately now, the X V3 switches still have some sort of weird ‘sticky’ feeling towards the housing collisions in the downstroke and upstroke that used to be much more common back in the day. (Perhaps this indicates its more so related to the housings than the lube application itself…) If you weren’t lucky enough to try these kinds of medium weight, neutral feeling lubed linear switches back in the day when they were the most popular options, just know this is pretty damn close to what it was like…

Figure 18: Force curve diagram for the stock Gateron X V3 switch.

Once more venturing to compare the Gateron X V3 switches with their previous iterations, I think simply comparing their force curves should be more than sufficient to support the claim that these are effectively the exact same switches made in more or less the same fashion. The factory lubing being present in the X V3 switches is definitely noticeable compared to its absence in the V1 or V2 versions, though you could very well make a Gateron X V1 or V2 feel like a lubed V3 version with proper lube application on your own. In an unmodified head-to-head comparison, the V1 and V2s have a fairly reasonable and not overly aggressive degree of small grain scratch that is noticeable in their push feeling.

Figure 19: Comparative force curve diagram for stock Gateron V1, V2, and V3 switches.

Sound

While I’m pretty confident that my tone in the previous few sections more than sells my fondness for how old switches were built and felt in hand back in the day, that doesn’t entirely mean that the experience was all sunshine and rainbows. Looking back, the overall sound profile of the switches was something that was both not nearly as good as we thought it was and also had quite a bit of room for improvement. In fact, one of the biggest changes that has occurred with switches at large in recent years is how they just sound so much more focused, deliberate, and clean than old school switches. Sure, some of these newfangled oddities have weird sound combinations that are sharp and pointy at one end and virtually entirely silent at the other, but they cover the full gamut of my personal likes and dislikes all in very deliberate ways that sees them avoid scratch, ping, inconsistencies, or weird tones with almost expert degrees of precision. Despite having modern factory lubing from Gateron which does normally help in defeating some of these historical sound problems in switches, the Gateron X V3 switches still lag behind the modern switch market by comparison in their sound. Overall these switches are quiet and very tight, compacted sounding linear switch no scratch and muted bottom outs, however the combination of sticky sounds at either end of the stroke from the factory lubing and the inconsistent, plasticky sounding topping outs really does the X V3 switches a disservice. The topping outs are especially not well balanced here in the sound profile and give a more rattly, jarring tone than where the expectations are in this day and age. (For what it is worth, though, this was pretty common for back in the day…) Any attempt to mitigate these sound issues with extra aftermarket lubing, by the way, will only be met with the balance of what good and bad is present in the Gateron X V3 switches being thrown off entirety and likely towards a direction that is more mushy in feeling and in sound.

Wobble

Even the stem wobble on the Gateron X V3 switches is to the time period! There is a noticeable amount of E/W and an even greater amount of N/S direction stem wobble that could bother some users picky about this metric. This is likely the point at which taller keycap profiles like SA and MT3 begin to feel more shaky and less consistent than what some users may want from their keyboards as well.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 21: Numerical details regarding the force curves for the stock Gateron X V3 switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1500 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- After 17,000 actuations, the Gateron X V3 switches predictably did show an increase in N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. Not only is this expected and fairly common amongst all of the switches I’ve reviewed thus far, but it is also especially likely to occur in switches like these with older, less tuned tolerances.

- At this point in break in testing, the X V3 switches did develop some inconsistency in their bottoming out feeling that was present across the batch of stock switches. Likely due to lube migration, this sort of occasional stickiness only makes the bottom outs of the switches feel less consistent rather than actively causing them to feel scratchier.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the Gateron X V3 switches continued to develop an increase in stem wobble as well as some further variation in consistency from switch to switch. Rather than just being felt at bottom out as in the stage above, the switches now also sound a bit different with some bottom outs carrying a less coherent sticky or ploppy sound at some points that wasn’t present before.

51,000 Actuations

- At 51,000 actuations, the Gateron X V3 switches appear to have more or less stopped in their adjustments and are not really easily distinguishable from the batch that were broken in to 34,000 actuations. While I can’t say for certain that these wouldn’t continue to drift or change with longer break in cycles, this does suggest it might not be as drastic beyond this point.

Figure 23: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Gateron X V3 switches throughout the break in process

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Gateron X V3 switches side by side.

Figure 24: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Akko Mirror, Cherry MX 'New Nixie', Ball Bearing Blue, Raptor MX Extreme, Wuque WS POM+, and Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow)

Akko Mirror

- There’s a significantly lesser amount of N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Akko Mirror switches than the Gateron X V3 switches. As stated above in the ‘Break In’ section, this is really not all that unexpected when you consider that the X V3s are faithful recreations of the 2021 Gateron X switch molds which were quite unoptimized at the time.

- While the comparative force curve below does good in demonstrating the difference in perceived stroke length difference between the Akko Mirror and Gateron X V3 switches, it is a bit misleading when it comes to how heavy their bottom outs feel. These two switches feel much more similar in terms of their bottom out weight and I would have expected maybe a ~5 gf. difference as opposed to a ~20 gf. one.

- The Akko Mirror switches are a bit louder and more pointy than that of the Gateron X V3 switches on account of their bottoming out onto their stem poles and clear, very concise sound. As a result of their factory lubing and choice in housing materials, the Gateron X V3s sound a bit more full, well rounded, and less consistent.

Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, these are the most similar to that of the Gateron X V3s in terms of their overall feeling and sound. This is assumedly largely due to similarities in housing construction, material choice, and style of factory lubing. Admittedly, though, the modern Gateron lubing is still a fair bit more consistent than that of the Cherry lubing.

- Despite sounding extremely similar to one another, I do feel as if the Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’ switches are ever so slightly more deep and bass focused in their bottom out tones than that of the Gateron X V3 switches.

- The Cherry MX ‘New Nixies’ have a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than that of the Gateron X V3 switches.

Ball Bearing Blue

- In terms of their overall sound profiles, the Ball Bearing Blue switches are drastically louder, higher pitched, and sharper sounding than that of the Gateron X V3 switches. In fact this is about as disparate of a comparison on this metric that exists among comparisons made in this list of switches.

- Further separating these switches from one another is that of their stem wobble. The Ball Bearing Blue switches simply have so little wobble that old mold designs and tolerances of the Gateron X V3 switches could not ever stand a chance of competing on this metric.

- Despite the Ball Bearing Blue switches having almost half a millimeter less of total stem travel than the Gateron X V3 switches, they definitely feel as if they have a longer total stroke than the X V3 switches in hand.

Raptor MX Extreme

- With respect to their bottom out sounds, the Raptor MX Extreme switches are a fair bit more loud and pointed than that of the Gateron X V3 switches. Additionally, the MX Extreme switches do not suffer from the same degree of break in related inconsistencies from factory lube migration that the Gateron X V3 switches do.

- There is quite a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Raptor MX Extreme switches than in the Gateron X V3s.

- In terms of their overall smoothness, while both switches are definitely smooth and very finely lubed by their respective manufacturers, the HMX-made Raptor MX Extremes just feel a bit more precisely lubed at all points in their strokes. There’s really no point in those switches in which most users would encounter or sluggish or inconsistent housing collisions as a result of the factory lubing.

Wuque WS POM+

- Strangely enough, of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Wuque WS POM+ switches are the only ones which are simultaneously deeper sounding and quieter than that of the Gateron X V3 switches. I doubt most people would not have guessed this by comparing old school housing constructions to more recent full POM ones from Gateron…

- Likely as a result of the top housings being more consistently mold injected in the Gateron X V3 switches than the WS POM+, the X V3 switches have less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble.

- The Wuque WS POM+ switches feel significantly more heavily lubed and have quite a bit of their stroke that feels sluggish in a direct comparison to that of the Gateron X V3 switches.

Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow

- The Gateron X line of switches was designed from the get-go to be a medium tier, better than budget but not quite the same as premium level of linear switch from Gateron and this is no more apparent than in this comparison to the G Pro 3.0 Yellows here. The G Pro 3.0 Yellows are just smoother, have tighter tolerances, feel and sound better, and are all around the better (and more costly) version of the Gateron X V3 switches.

- Despite the overwhelming degree to which the Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellows are better than that of the Gateron X V3 switches, there is something nostalgic about how the housings feel and sound in the X V3 switches that I imagine some people would actually prefer over the sheer technical perfection of a switch that Gateron has been continuously iterating on for the better part of a decade now.

- Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellows don’t have fun artificial mac and cheese orange colors available for them, though…

Linearity

Figure 31: Absolute and relative Linearity and Slope values for each switch in this comparison section.

Figure 32: Qualitative comparison of the normalized Slope and Linearity for each switch in this comparison section.

If you are just now seeing this section for the first time and are a bit confused as to what I am talking about when discussing ‘Slope’ and ‘Linearity’, I highly suggest checking out my article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’ where I explain what this section is for and how it came to be! For a bit of a shorter answer, know that this is part of my ongoing attempt to better quantify and articulate differences between linear switches which have historically not been captured in discussions about them.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.