So you thought that your Ziggy mousepad was cool, then you haven’t seen anyhitng yet. SteelSeries has released their new SteelSeries SX mousepad made of fiber polished aluminum and an anodized oxide surface treated. (I don’t even know wtf those are, but damn if they don’t sound fancy) It even comes with a treated cloth that ensures less friction.

These surfaces are boasting the smoothest surface possible and the ultimate in gaming reaction time. I had no idea that a mousepad had that much of an affect in gaming, but I guess I was wrong. If you want to roll like a pro gamer this bad boy will seet you back $60 but it will ensure you get at least two extra kills per CounterStrike match. (Ok I made that part up, but it is space age.)

Check it out. What next a carbon fiber mouse?

Form the press release:

The spectacular gliding sensation of the SteelSeries SX is achieved by the most time consuming manufacturing process ever put into a mousepad from SteelSeries. Every SteelSeries SX is individually fiber polished and anodized, before being manually treated with a new unique liquid silicone coating, developed specifically for this surface. The surface on the SteelSeries SX was further developed and sophisticated from an original aluminum surface released by SteelSeries in 2001, once labeled “the sexiest mouse pad in the entire industry” by Angel Munoz, Founder and President of The Cyberathlete Professional League®.

The glide and feel of SteelSeries SX does not resemble any other professional gaming mousepad on the market today. During research and development of this surface, professional Counter-Strike players from Team NoA described the mousepad as “the purest form of glide in the world”.

“With the SteelSeries SX we wanted to create something spectacular and exclusive,” says Kim Rom, Marketing Director for SteelSeries. “It feels good to create a gaming surface where the only focus is performance, glide and the overall feel of the product – without trying strike a balance between production cost, price point and volume.”

“With the SteelSeries SX we tried to reach new limits and I can honestly say we reached them. It was our goal to make a pad that would offer smoothness and be very durable and not lose it over time. We knew from experience that aluminum was a perfect material to achieve this goal.” says Jonas ‘Johnny R’ Bollack, SteelSeries Development Team. “Several months, and after countless tests by professional gamers, later we can finally present the result. An anodized aluminum surface that does the job perfectly and both we and our testers agreed: This is as good as it (aluminum) gets. :-)”

Included with the mousepad is SteelSeries Glide MS and SteelSeries Silicone Glide, a specially designed saturated cloth, to further improve glide and reduce friction. Development, refinement and testing of the SteelSeries SX has taken 9 months and involved input and help from professionals players in Team NoA, mousesports, compLexity, Team 3D and Reason Gaming.

SteelSeries SX is available in very limited quantities at selected retailers worldwide. It is also available at the SteelSeries website as a single product - or in bundles with either a SteelSeries IME 3.0 SS mouse or SteelSeries 5H v2 USB and SteelSeries 4H headsets.