IBM Model M Buckling Spring vs Cherry MX Green

IBM Model M Buckling Spring or Cherry MX Green: the long answer

This pair has a fit problem to clear before feel or sound matter. The IBM Model M Buckling Spring does not use an MX style stem, so it will not drop into a standard hot-swap board or accept ordinary MX keycaps. Both are mid priced. Neither ships lubed, so budget an evening with a brush if you want either at its best.

That leaves the stroke itself. At actuation the Cherry MX Green is the firmer press, 80 g against 67 g, a difference you notice after a paragraph rather than on the first keystroke. Both are clickies either way, so both stack a click mechanism on a bump you already feel. Travel differs at both ends, with the Cherry MX Green registering first at 2.2 mm and the Cherry MX Green running deepest at 4.0 mm. Everything else about them is close enough that the spring is the honest tiebreak.

What the table cannot tell you is how either one lands in a room. The IBM Model M Buckling Spring sits at loud full clack-click with steel-chassis ring; the Cherry MX Green answers with loud, slightly deeper click than Blue with a firm landing. They do not even click the same way: a spring buckling against the hammer on the IBM Model M Buckling Spring against a click jacket sliding down the stem on the Cherry MX Green, which is most of the tonal difference you are hearing. A click you love at your own desk can still be the loudest thing in someone else’s meeting. One caveat we repeat wherever a player appears: no studio recording sits behind either of these. They are built from what each maker publishes and what the community reports.

That leaves an unusually simple answer, because one switch wins on all three counts: the IBM Model M Buckling Spring is our pick for gaming and for typing, and the quieter of two switches that both announce themselves. On speed, the honest answer is that either would do, and it wins on a margin too small to feel. On typing feel, the click turns a long writing session into a rhythm, if your room allows it. On noise, neither of these belongs in a quiet shared room, and this is only the less punishing of the two clicks. That leaves the Cherry MX Green to anyone who preferred its voice in the player above, which is a good enough reason on its own. The player above is the cheapest part of this decision, so use it before your wallet is involved.

There is more on both than a head-to-head can carry. Start with the IBM Model M Buckling Spring page and the Cherry MX Green page. If you are here to check the board you already own, use our free keyboard tester.

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