Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid & QuickFire Pro Review

All too often, enthusiasts focus their attention upon the performance of their systems and forget about two of the most integral devices of any gaming experience: the mouse and keyboard. While gaming mice do have an entrenched following and are quite popular, the keyboard end of the equation tends to fall by the wayside. This is a shame as the right keyboard selection is just as important - and can have just as great an impact on your gaming enjoyment – as the right mouse. Like gaming mice, the design and features of keyboards vary wildly from one product to the next and no one keyboard is going to be right for everyone. It is with this thought in mind that Cooler Master created both the Storm QuickFire Rapid and the Storm QuickFire Pro.

While both keyboards are part of Cooler Master’s Gaming centric Storm lineup, this is about all they share in common. The QuickFire Pro is a mid-sized unit which is designed to be a packed with features while still having a fairly typical footprint. By comparison, the QuickFire Rapid is a small form factor keyboard designed to be easily transportable, but without sacrificing quality or performance.

Equally vital as the overall design philosophy of these two keyboards is the Cherry switches Cooler Master has opted for. Different Cherry MX switches provide different characteristics and provide totally different experiences. The QuickFire Pro is a Cherry MX Brown based keyboard and has been designed for maximum comfort in gaming and non-gaming scenarios alike. However, the smaller QuickFire Rapid relies upon Cherry Blues which are designed for lightning quick typing response rather than gaming orientated scenarios. As we already mentioned, these keyboards couldn’t be any more different from one another.