8K Polling Rate Test for 4000 and 8000 Hz Mice

How to check a 4K or 8K mouse

1. Set the rate in the mouse’s software first. High rates usually aren’t on out of the box: Corsair’s 8000 Hz mice start at 1000 Hz until you raise them in iCUE, Razer sets them in Synapse and Logitech in G HUB (Performance tab, Report rate).
2. Pick the same rate under Compare with. The page starts at 8,000 Hz; choose 4,000 Hz or 2,000 Hz if that’s what you set.
3. Move the mouse fast, in big circles, for three to five seconds inside the green box. A mouse only reports while it moves, and a slow drift reads lower than it should. Watch Max, not the number that flickers while you move.
4. Read the line under it. It says whether the reading reached the rate you picked, or how far it fell short.

Buttons, scrolling and the double-click detector work on this page too, under the polling rate.

Why a reading falls short

• The browser. This page listens for raw pointer events (pointerrawupdate), which Chrome, Edge and recent Firefox send as soon as they get them, instead of once per screen refresh. Safari doesn’t have them and may read lower. The panel says when your browser is limiting the reading.
• The port and the cable. USB polls a full-speed device once per 1 ms frame at most, so 8000 Hz needs a high-speed connection and a direct port. Razer asks for a native USB port and, for its wireless dongle, line of sight within about 30 cm and distance from USB 3 hubs.
• The processor. Every report costs CPU time. Razer notes a busy computer “might lack the resources needed to process 8,000 reports a second”, and Corsair’s minimum for 8000 Hz is an Intel Core i7 9th generation or Ryzen 7 2nd generation processor.
• Power saving. Logitech says its G mice vary the report rate with use to save battery, so a wireless mouse at rest or moving slowly may report less often.

When to trust a desktop tool instead

Logitech’s own support pages say browser-based report-rate tools can’t correctly handle high rates and suggest a standalone tool (MouseTester, on GitHub) to validate the maximum. If this page tops out at 4000 Hz in Chrome while your mouse is set to 8000 Hz, try a desktop tool before you blame the mouse. If both agree, go through the port and processor checks above.

To check the rest of the mouse, use the full mouse tester. The Logitech G502 page compares the reading with that mouse’s 1000 Hz rating, and the MX Master page explains why an office mouse reads far lower. Polling rate isn’t refresh rate: to see how often your screen redraws, use the refresh rate test.

Polling rates and the time between reports

The time between two reports is 1 second divided by the rate. The tester rounds its reading to the nearest of these standard rates when it’s within 25%.