Gaming mice are fast, in the sense that they have ridiculously powerful tracking sensors. They’re also fast in the sense that they communicate with your computer very quickly, measured in polling rate hertz. A typical mouse might use a 250hz or 500hz polling rate, updating its position five hundred times a second, but gaming mice typically start at 1000hz and go even faster. Much faster, if you’re using a recent Razer gaming mouse and you make sure to update your firmware.
According to a press release from the company, it’s boosting the polling rate on several of its existing gaming mice, no new purchase necessary. Several wired and wireless models will now have an option to boost their polling rate up to 8000Hz, matching the company’s fastest models. The existing models being upgraded are below, with links to our reviews where available:
- Viper V2 Pro
- DeathAdder V3 Pro
- Cobra Pro
- Basilisk V3 Pro
- Viper V3 Hyperspeed
Owners can boost their polling rate by upgrading the firmware of their mouse (and HyperSpeed wireless dongle, if necessary) through the Synapse driver software. Note that you’ll probably need to manually adjust the polling rate in Synapse and that it will only work with Razer’s proprietary USB dongles or when plugged in directly, not over Bluetooth.
Personally, I find that polling rates over 1000Hz are kind of nutty and 8000Hz is well beyond even the most impressive eSports “athletes” ability to track and respond. That’s without even mentioning online multiplayer, where your connection to the server will bottleneck this kind of performance by an order of magnitude. That said, it’s very cool to see Razer upgrade its existing products where possible instead of deliberately saving that feature for new releases.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer
Michael is a former graphic designer who's been building and tweaking desktop computers for longer than he cares to admit. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.