If there’s one peripheral that Razer is widely regarded as being the best at delivering, it’s the gaming mouse. With that in mind, it’s no real surprise that Razer Viper 8K Gaming Mouse gaming mouse proves itself to be one of the best performing gaming mice currently in the market. In addition, you get the added benefit that it’s part of the Viper range, which means it doesn’t matter whether you’re right-handed or a leftie; this gaming mouse will work for all hardcore competitive gamers.
This doesn’t instantly mean that you’re going to be 8x the better player than the average eSports gamer! It simply means that if you have an incredible refresh rate on your monitor, your mouse is now able to keep up with the tiniest of movements and provide the smoothest in-game experience you can have with a mouse. The nature of the mouse is such that you’re only going to gain real benefits if you play eSports games that require incredibly fast reflexes. So that rules out sports games and racing games. If you’re playing shooters like Call of Duty Warzone and Rainbow Six Siege, the Viper 8K shines the brightest.
So, what data is exactly submitted as part of the polling rate? The 8K Hz polling rate means that there are 8000 individually unique data reports sent to your computer every single second. These data reports include your mouse position, what buttons (if any) are clicked and the state of your mouse wheel. Every 0.125ms, the mouse sends a signal to your computer letting it know what it’s current state is. When translated to a game like Warzone, you’re never going to be more accurate when aiming with a Kar98k across 300m of land.
As far as mouse design goes, the Viper 8K follows a similar shape and design as the Viper Ultimate (albeit the 8K is a wired mouse). I am perfectly happy with this design approach since the Viper series is my favourite out of the entire Razer line. The weight to size ratio is absolutely perfect and the fact that it has ambidextrous support makes it very appealing to a wider audience. In true Razer fashion, the Viper 8K also has the illustrious Razer logo planted where your palm sits, and is fully configurable with Razer’s Chroma RGB technology. At only 71g, I cannot stress how light the mouse feels.
Although the Viper 8K is primarily targeted towards the competitive eSports gamer, I also believe that the mouse would be perfect for content creators who work with sophisticated graphic design. The nature of graphic design is such that you’re often working with pixels and need to be able to leverage the mouse as smoothly as you would if you had a paintbrush in your hand. It’s likely that an experienced graphics designer will have a high refresh rate monitor, and the Viper 8K will ensure that the mouse inputs are equally as smooth.
As with all of Razer’s other recent gaming mice, the Viper 8K uses Razer’s Speedflex cable which is designed to minimize drag entirely. Many other companies claim to have a very lightweight mouse but if they’re attached to a poor quality cable, the drag alone can make the mouse feel double its weight. The Viper 8K on the other hand feels like you’re using a wireless mouse even though you’re not.
Razer also allows you to store up to 5 profiles (configured through their Synapse 3 app) directly into the memory of the mouse. This is absolutely critical for any serious gaming mouse since a lot of hardcore players will change their playstyles according to the situation they’re in, and that could result in the need for different macros and shortcuts. In addition, you might have a profile for gaming, but then another profile for streaming and a third one for video/image editing. It’s unlikely that you’ll need more than 5 but if you do, you can always fire up Synapse 3 and change the profiles around. As is customary, all 8 buttons on the mouse are also fully programmable to suit your needs.
Even though the Viper 8K markets itself as an 8K Hz polling rate mouse, it is possible that in some scenarios, you may not want 8000Hz. Perhaps your monitor doesn’t handle it, or you may find it more comfortable to lower it. Through Synapse 3, you can alter the polling rate and reduce it if necessary. As an example, you may currently have a monitor that doesn’t support the full capabilities of an 8K Hz mouse. You may consider buying a monitor in the future however. In this scenario, you can reduce the mouse’s polling rate to 1000 Hz (similar to other gaming mice), and then increase it later when necessary. Razer actually provides software that you can download to test the mouse polling rate so that you can decide which rate is best for you.
What’s perhaps most surprising is the price of the mouse. Currently, this sits at £79.99 on Razer’s website but other reputable retailers such as Amazon have it currently discounted at under £70. For a professional gaming mouse with such significant features, I expected the Viper 8K to sit at approximately £100. Razers previous wired Viper model was at a similar price so it looks like Razer will slowly phase that mouse out in favour of this upgraded version. It’s a win-win situation for the customer since we can buy a considerably better gaming mouse for exactly the same price as its predecessor.
Razer has gone far beyond the current market standards with the Viper 8K. The truth is that the industry simply didn’t know that it needed an 8K gaming mouse. If you’re a competitive eSports player who starts using the Viper 8K, you simply cannot go back to using a traditional mouse. It’s the same feeling that you got when the world switched from SD to HD video – you simply cannot go back. Peripheral performance is everything in gaming and it’s an incredibly rare achievement for a new gaming mouse to release that completely outperforms everything else in the market. The Razer Viper 8K however manages to achieve this and has now become the new gold standard for gaming mice.