Buying a Rubik's Cube – The Best Speed Cubes out There

Updated: Dec 2022.

A speedcube is a cube that is great enough in quality to be used in competitions. Therefore it's the ideal choice for any cuber.

This guide is the result of a vast research I've made, checking all popular cubes, speedcubers opinions, and world-record holders cube choices. This is relevant for both world class speedcubers and new cubers who would like to get a great cube to practice with.

For my 2018 best speedcubes guide click here
For my 2016 best speedcubes guide click here

This is the best 3x3 speed cubes guide, here are the other guides:

Intro (mostly for the new guys)

Unlike one may think- the original Rubik's cube that is being sold over the main toys stores around the world is far from being the ideal choice as a great quality cube, and is also (sometimes) more expensive.

The best cubes today are being produced by other brands, and are sold mostly over the internet (private stores / Amazon - recommended links attached below), for a price of around 10$-80$ /cube, sometimes with a free shipping.

So, what qualities makes a great speedcube?

There are many factors, objective and subjective. I'll try to review it here:

Speed/smoothness: How easily and quickly a face will turn. Usually a result of loose springs inside the cube. A very important factor. However, on certain levels can be harmful because of overshooting (turns more than needed).

Corner cutting: the ability to make a turn while a perpendicular face is not fully aligned (due to overshooting or a quick turn- a situation that occurs often). This is an important quality to avoid a lock-up during the solving.

Reverse corner cutting: the ability to successfully make a turn in the harder case where the perpendicular face was undershot (rather than overshot)- and therefore the center piece is physically blocking the corner piece from completing the turn. (Reverse cutting capability is ofcourse smaller than the regular corner cutting, and was not even possible in some of the old cubes.

Pop resistance: how resistant is the cube for a piece being popped during a quick solving, or extreme conditions (e.g. 10 moves per second). A popped out piece during an official solving is an auto disqualification for that round.

Lock-up resistance: the ability of the cube to resist a lock-up during a messy or very quick sequence of moves. Corner cutting is a "special case" of the broader "lock-up resistance" (A good lock-up resistant cube must cut corners well and vice versa).

Corner twist: a corner piece that got twisted around itself (which makes the cube unsolvable, and requires a twist back). It doesn't really happens often during solving in any popular cube, but it is being talked about a lot. Cubes today comes with immense corner cutting and speed- and that doesn't comes without a price. Higher score means less likely to happen.

Weight: the lighter is not always the better. A matter of self-preference, however a medium weight is agreed to be the best choice.

The magnets

Integrating magnets in speedcubes started several years ago and became so popular that as of today magnets are integrated in cubes in several ways. Here are the different options:

Inter-piece magnets

Also referred to as "attracting magnets". These magnets are the first type of magnets integrated into speedcubes and became so successful and popular that it is a standard now, even in many cheap, more affordable cubes. These magnets are placed on the contact surface of each pair of adjacent edge and corner - creating an attracting force between them. This attraction force will correctly align a small overshoot of a turn by drawing the moving layer towards a complete, whole turn, resulting in a better, more stable cube. These magnets are usually adjustable with several levels of magnet strength, starting from a very weak attracting force up until a strong one. Cubes that feature these magnets usually has the letter "M" in their name, indicating their existence.

Maglev

Abbreviation of Magnetic levitation. Introduced only in 2021 and already became popular among leading speedcube manufacturers. A quick look at the world-record list already hints us that this technology is here to stay. The idea behind maglev is to replace the regular tension springs by magnets. Any spring is replaced by 2 magnets, pointing each other with the same pole aligned (thus repelling each other). Bringing these magnets closer to each other makes them repel harder- thus working just like a spring (see image). The main advantage of using magnets over springs is that the magnets do not actually touch each other, eliminating the friction with the spring during a turn, thus making an easier, more effortless turn, resulting in a faster speedcube. Another benefit of maglev is a quieter cube, as you will no longer hear the spring noise when turning. Using maglev instead of springs usually makes the cube 5 to 10 grams heavier compared to a non-maglev version. All in all, although very impressing idea, these magnets are doing exactly what springs already do, with the benefit of a slightly faster cube- something to keep in mind, when considering a speedcube on a budget.

Core magnets

Also referred to as corner-core magnets. These magnets act as a complementary force to the "regular" (or inter-piece) magnets in the following way. Located at the 45-angle mark, the core magnets push, by repulsion, the moving layer towards the closer whole turn. While inter-piece magnets are effective in small angles (only), core magnets are dominant in large angles (around 45 degrees), thus allowing a wider overshoot correction, resulting in a more stable cube, with less lock-ups. GAN13 speedcube, for example, claims to perform "up to 30 degrees auto-aligning", using such magnets.

Adjustability

Many speedcubes today come with built-in customizable features, thus allowing the cube to better fit each individual cuber, according to his personal preferences. In general, these adjustments allow to modify the trade-off between two qualities of the cube (e.g. corner cutting vs stability), with the sweet spot being usually a matter of self-preferences. There are 3 main customizable features in a speedcube:

Centerpiece travel

Also referred to as Axis-distance or screw depth. Modifying this quantity changes the range in which the center piece is allowed to travel (how far can it reach). Old cubes for example, does not allow any movement of the center piece (zero centerpiece travel), resulting in zero corner-cutting ability (let alone reverse corner cutting), requiring a perfect turn alignment, to execute the following one. Or the other hand, these old cubes never experience a corner twist, or a pop-up during a solve. Therefore, there is a trade-off here between a stable, and a faster, more flexible cube.

spring tension

Also referred to as spring compression or spring strength. The center piece is not moving freely within the allowed range of motion (dictated by the centerpiece travel above) - it is attached to a spring. These adjustable springs determine the center piece resistance to stretch within the range of motion. Strong tension will result in a more stable (however possibly rigid cube), while weaker tension will result in a more flexible cube. Unlike centerpiece travel, spring tension will have much less effect on the cube's performance, effecting mostly on the "feel" of the cube (which is very important as well). Therefore, this trade-off between stability and flexibility is mostly a matter of self-preferences.

Inter-piece magnets

Inter-piece magnets are also adjustable in some cubes, allowing for several levels of magnetic strengths. While strong magnets result in a more stable cube and reduce the need to rely on corner cutting, it also slows down the cube, due to its attracting forces, somewhat resisting at the beginning of every new turn.

Where to Get

Since cubing became a popular thing, the availability of cubes raised dramatically. I personally get most of my cubes from Amazon, as the main cube manufacturers (like GAN and MoYu) started selling there directly to customers. This is in addition to the regular benefits of ordering from this giant retailer – pricing, shipping, returns, etc.

Update: I recently found out that some of the manufacturers are selling also in AliExpress (as most of them are Chinese). I actually bought the MoYu WeiLong WR M Maglev for 17$ from MoYu’s AliExpress Official store! and with free shipping (I didn’t believe it too- here is the screenshot). Although this is a special deal (end-of-year sale), it is definitely worthy checking AliExpress before ordering a cube, as sometimes the discounts are big. As always, I added below the exact links for the reviewed cube models and official stores. Enjoy!

The Best 3x3 Speed Cubes Today

Below are the best quality cubes as of today. It is hard to put the hand on a single cube as the "best", as it comes to self-preference. However, all of the following are considered world-class cubes, and used by current world record holders. Overall score includes general impressions of the cube in addition to the graded qualities (like speed and corner cutting) (so it is not only an average of them).

GAN13 Maglev

X-man Tornado V3 Pioneer

MoYu WeiLong WR M 2021 Maglev

MoYu super RS3 M 2022

So, which one should I get?

Since all of these cubes are considered to be world-class and of the highest quality- it comes to self-preferences. The best way to decide between them is to try them all by yourself. With this in mind, I believe that it is fairly accepted by many cubers today that the GAN13 maglev is the best speedcube in the world today. So, if you are seriously into speedcubing and are willing to spend the money- this is the cube for you. If you are seriously into cubing but limited on a budget I would go for the X-man Tornado V3, or the MoYu WeiLong WR M Maglev edition according to your budget. If you are even more restricted on budget, or not so much into speedcubing, only looking for a really good cube to enjoy solving, then this is the easiest choice to make here-the MoYu super RS3 M 2022 standard edition is definitely the cube for you.

Watch the 4.86s WR by Tymon Kolasiński - with GAN speedcube

What cubes does the world-record holders use?

Single fastest 3x3 solve
Rank	Name	Result	Country	At the event	Cube used
1	Yusheng Du	3.47	China	Wuhu Open 2018	MoYu GTS2M (successor: WR M)
2	Max Park	3.63	United States	Circle City Summer 2022	n/a
3	Asher Kim-Magierek	3.89	United States	Rose City 2022	MoYu RS3M 2020
4	Tymon Kolasiński	3.97	Poland	WCA European Championship 2022	GAN 12 Maglev
5	Max Siauw	4.03	United States	BC Cubing Springback A 2022	Tornado V3

Fastest average 3x3 solve (3 out of 5)
Rank	Name	Result	Country	At the event	Cube used
1	Tymon Kolasiński	4.86	Poland	Cube4fun Warsaw 2022	GAN 12 Maglev
1	Max Park	4.86	United States	Marshall Cubing September 2022	n/a
3	Luke Garrett	5.20	United States	Rocky Top 2022	MoYu super RS3M 2022
4	Matty Hiroto Inaba	5.25	United States	Northeast Championship 2022	GAN 12 Maglev
5	Leo Borromeo	5.48	Philippines	Cube Ta Bai sa Cebu 2022	GAN 12 Maglev
5	Ruihang Xu	5.48	China	Wuhan Open 2021	GAN 11M