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When you’re buying new accessories for your PC or for your consoles, there are an awful lot of buzzwords thrown around to make something seem better than it really is. Hall Effect keys, TMR joysticks, 8,000hz polling rates — the list goes on and on. Some of these are genuine game changers, whereas others are little more than performance hogs.
If you’ve recently purchased a new gaming mouse for work or play and noticed that your CPU tends to run hotter and its usage may be spiking more than you anticipated, this could be the reason. Sometimes, a higher number isn’t really what you need, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today.
What is mouse polling rate, really?
These numbers sometimes don't seem to add up
Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO
So, you’re interested in learning a bit more about what polling rate actually means, are you? Before researching this myself, I was in the same boat — I was unaware of the marketing hype, so I figured it was time to break it down a bit. Polling rate, simply put, is how often your mouse and PC communicate with one another, measured in Hz. A standard office mouse, or one that may get included with your PC, typically has a PR of 125Hz. Some gaming mice now offer a polling rate of up to 8,000Hz or higher, meaning incredibly low latency and almost 1:1 movement between the two.
The biggest trade-off, however, is how your CPU will react. Every Hz requires communication between your PC and your mouse, so the higher the DPI, the more they’ll be interacting with one another. It doesn’t matter if your mouse is wired or wireless; this variable doesn’t change unless you change your polling rate.
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Polling Rate vs DPI (Dots Per Inch)
Does a higher DPI also affect your CPU usage?
Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO
I don’t have the beefiest PC in the world by any means — I’m currently running an ASUS NVIDIA 4060Ti and a Ryzen 5600X. Both of these can run the latest games with great graphics, and my general PC usage is smooth. Regardless of the mouse I’m using, I typically run at a 1,000Hz polling rate and a DPI of 3,200 to 5,000. But does DPI cause the same issues that a higher polling rate does? The answer is a little more complex, but DPI doesn’t do nearly as much as a high polling rate.
DPI, or dots per inch, adjusts how far the cursor moves when the mouse is physically moved. Polling Rate, on the other hand, sends the data directly to your computer for things like position, clicks, and button presses. The higher the polling rate, the more the CPU has to work, whereas DPI is for adjusting where the cursor is.
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Do most folks need a high polling rate mouse?
Even pro players don't use super high polling rates
Looking into the most popular mice for eSports, two particular brands stood out to me — Logitech and Razer. Some of their high-end mice feature an 8,000Hz polling rate, yet professional eSports players tend to stick to either 500Hz or 1,000Hz. Why? Because of how much CPU higher polling rates can eat up, and in a do-or-die situation in games like Counter-Strike 2 or League of Legends, every frame matters.
Depending on the refresh rate of your monitor, you may not even notice the seemingly negligible difference that a higher polling rate can offer. An 8,000Hz polling rate will remove roughly 1Ms of input lag on a 240Hz monitor,
Make sure you're checking your keyboard, too
Gaming keyboards can eat away at your CPU just as much as your mouse
Credit: Yadullah AbidiMakeUseOf
Here’s something you may not have realized: that fancy mechanical keyboard that you have on your desk could potentially be sapping away at your CPU without you realizing it. See, companies like Wooting and Razer promote 8,000Hz polling rates, but there really isn’t a major difference between the two. Something that the CEO of Wooting, Calder, has even admitted during a video call. I’ve been using mechanical keyboards for quite some time now, and the software that is included could help you reduce that polling rate, thus help your CPU usage in the long run.
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It doesn’t matter if you’re using Armoury Crate, iCue, Razer Synapse, or whatever software comes bundled with your new device. You can change your polling rate directly in this software, and it’s something I suggest checking into if you’ve noticed that your CPU seems to be spiking more than normal lately. At least a lot of membrane keyboards don’t overcomplicate things, now do they?
Match your polling rate to your preference
Who knows — 500Hz may not be as bad as it sounds
It’s wild to think that something as small as how often your mouse communicates with your PC could be causing the slowdown you’ve been experiencing lately. Especially if you’ve noticed that it’s started shortly after upgrading one or more of your computer components.
After learning about this myself, I’ve been experimenting with different polling rates to see how they affect my CPU. I’ve found a happy medium with 500Hz at this point. It still offers me enough room to frag without fail, and takes a bit of extra load off my CPU. If you’ve got a stronger system in your home, you may not need to do this. Just like Lossless Scaling helps mid-tier and low-tier users, adjusting your polling rate could be a secret that you weren’t aware of.
