After a slow run for peripherals last year, we had plenty of new gaming mouse launches this year, and the competition was tight. Every year, we see gaming mice becoming faster and lighter, with more accurate sensors. Even budget offerings now come with decent sensors, so we’re spoilt for choice. This makes it hard to stand out, but our Digit Zero1 Award winner has done just that, by being the first in the world to introduce a polling rate of 8000Hz! Even with this edge, it wasn’t too far ahead of our runner up, so without further ado, here is our Digit Zero1 Award winner for the best gaming mouse.
The 8KHz in the Razer Viper 8KHz stands exactly for that, it has a polling rate of 8000Hz. For comparison, most mice come with a polling rate of 1000Hz. The polling rate on a mouse is how many times a mouse refreshes its position per second. The Viper does it 8000 times. What does this mean in terms of performance? The Razer Viper 8KHz can send 8 times more data per second, which basically brings the delay down from 1 millisecond to 1/8th of a millisecond. This means less delays and micro stutters when you're playing. This difference is hard to notice past the 1000Hz mark, but if you've ever reduced the polling rate on a mouse to 500Hz or lower, it's easily noticeable, especially when playing fast-paced games, such as competitive FPS. While this difference may be hard to notice for casual players, for a competitive player even milliseconds can mean the difference between winning and losing. Fewer delays is always the preference. The Viper 8KHz comes with the Razer Focus+ Optical sensor, which offers up to 20,000 CPI, a tracking speed of 650 IPS and 50G of acceleration. The sensor comes with a host of additional functions too, like Smart Tracking, Asymmetric Cut-Off and Motion Sync. The mouse uses 2nd gen Razer Optical Mouse Switches, which have a larger lifespan than gen 1 at 70 million clicks. The switches also use optics, rather than physical touch to send signals, which eliminates debounce delay. The mouse is also pretty lightweight at 71g, and there's really nothing stopping us from recommending this mouse for just about every kind of gamer. The Razer Viper 8KHz is the Digit Zero1 winner for the best gaming mouse.
The Logitech G Pro Wireless fell only slightly short of the Razer Viper 8Khz in our performance tests, which is why it's our Digit Zero1 runner up. When it comes to mice, few sensors in the world are as good as the Logitech HERO sensors, and the Logitech G Pro Wireless comes equipped with the HERO 25K sensor, which can go as high as 25,600 CPI. It has a max acceleration of 40G and a maximum tracking speed of 400 IPS. It's got a maximum polling rate of 1000Hz, which we found to be very accurate even at high speeds. It's certainly not 8KHz, but it more than gets the job done. We did mention it's pretty hard to notice past the 1000Hz mark. The click latency on the G Pro is also excellent, which paired with its light weight at just 80g, and design, make it an excellent mouse for competitive gaming. Another thing the G Pro has in its favour is that it's wireless, with an excellent battery life of a whopping 40+ hours, and there's really no noticeable difference in performance between wired and wireless usage. Like we just mentioned, the Logitech G Pro Wireless fell only slightly short of the Razer Viper 8KHz, which is our winner, but if you're looking for a wireless option, then this is your best bet.
The HyperX Pulsefire Haste is the lightest mouse we tested for the Digit Zero1 Awards this year at just 58g. It follows the old but familiar trend of using a honeycomb design to reduce weight and you can certainly feel the results as the mouse effortlessly glides across the mousepad. Inside, we've got the Pixart 3335 sensor, with a maximum CPI of 16,000 and a tracking speed of 450 IPS. While the sensor isn't the best we tested this year in terms of performance, specifications like these are the norm in mid to high-end gaming mice. Which makes it all the more excellent in a budget offering like the HyperX Pulsefire Haste. To top it off, this is a comfy mouse to use so it's easy to recommend to someone who enjoys long gaming sessions and is looking for a decent budget gaming mouse offering. For these reasons, the HyperX Pulsefire Haste is our best buy.