This page is about reading gaming gear specifications, not about reviewing gear. Gimaxo ran no tests for it. It covers mice, keyboards, monitors and controllers, and it separates three kinds of statement that look alike on a product page: an announced specification, a marketing comparison and a measured result. For the full gear picture, see our gaming gear guide. The cover photograph is a stock photo by Clifford from Unsplash, used as an illustration. It is not a Gimaxo setup, not a test and not a measurement. The brands visible in it are incidental.

An earlier version of this page described a test method with controlled variables and repeated runs, and made claims about what professional players choose. Gimaxo has no such tests, and the page had no sources, so we replaced it with what the makers and standards bodies actually say.

Three kinds of figure

• Announced specification. A figure the maker states about its own product, such as weight, polling rate or sensor DPI. You can check it against the maker’s page, but the maker is the only source.
• Marketing comparison. A figure that compares the product with something else, such as “37% lower latency than its predecessor”. You need to know what it is compared with, and the claim often does not say.
• Measured result. A figure produced by a defined test. A maker can run one, an independent lab can run one, and a standards body can define one. The test conditions matter more than the number.

Most of what you see on a product page is the first two. This page does not publish measured results of its own.

Mice: the conditions behind the headline

Corsair explains that polling rate is how often a mouse reports to the computer, typically 1,000 Hz, and says that with at least 1,000 Hz “you should be fine”. Corsair’s SABRE v2 PRO press release adds footnotes: reaching 8,000 Hz depends on CPU specifications, and the “up to 70 hours” of battery life is for 2.4 GHz with a 1 kHz polling rate. Pulsar lists processor and port requirements for its 8K mode. Razer’s DeathAdder V4 Pro press release states “37% lower latency than its predecessor” without naming the predecessor.

So a mouse figure can come with a condition, a hardware requirement or an unnamed comparison. The condition is in the footnote, not the headline. Our mouse guide and the 2025 snapshot cover specific mice.

Keyboards: the same word, different figures

Cherry’s current page for its MX2A Brown switch lists an actuation force of 45 cN. An older Cherry overview says the Brown needs 55 centinewton of actuation force, and Corsair’s chart lists the Brown at 55 g. Cherry’s newer Illuma Brown page lists a tactile force of 55 cN and an actuation force of 45 cN separately. A force figure can describe the point where the key registers, or the point where you feel a bump, and different documents use the same word for either.

Wooting describes Rapid Trigger as a feature that activates the key when you press down and resets it when you retract, and “at any point of retraction” you can press it again. That is a description of behaviour. Whether it helps your play is a question this page cannot answer.

Monitors: claims with different metrics

VESA, the standards body, writes that several monitors “may claim the same or similar sounding specs and benefits, but use different metrics or measurement methods”. For motion blur, VESA’s ClearMR is a certification of motion clarity. It defines a Clear Motion Ratio, the ratio of clear pixels to blurry pixels, measured under its test conditions. VESA says the ratio replaces Motion Picture Response Time and other methods that “do not accurately reflect the true nature of blur”. It covers motion clarity only: it is not an overall score for a monitor, and it says nothing about colour, brightness or input lag.

The ClearMR test conditions are published. Displays are tested at their default power-up configuration and native resolution at maximum frame rate, after a warm-up. Backlight strobing is disabled so that products can be compared on a level footing, and limits on overshoot and undershoot keep a high number from being reached at the cost of image quality. A refresh rate figure tells you how often the screen can update. It does not carry these conditions, and a response time figure from a maker may use another method.

Controllers: what a sensor claim covers

iFixit, an independent repair organisation, explains that a standard stick uses a potentiometer, where a wiper moves against a resistive pad, and that a Hall-effect stick uses a contactless alternative: magnets and a sensor sensitive to magnetic fields. Turtle Beach, a controller maker, says on its own page that “no friction means no wear, and no wear means no drift”. The same page says Hall-effect controllers “eliminate drift caused by mechanical wear”.

Read the second sentence carefully. It is narrower than the first. A magnetic sensor removes one cause of drift, wear on a contact point. That is a reduction of one cause, not a guarantee that a controller will never drift for any reason, and the sources we read do not say it is. We found no independent durability measurement for Hall-effect sticks in them.

The guide’s own advice

• Ask what the figure measures, under what conditions, and compared with what. Each of the examples above hides one of these three answers.
• Treat a footnote as part of the number. It names the polling rate, the CPU or the connection behind the headline.
• Prefer a published test procedure to a bare figure. ClearMR shows what that looks like, with its limits: it certifies motion clarity under stated conditions, not the whole monitor.

What we could not verify

We found no source we could use for the following, so this page does not state them: how much any latency figure matters in play, what professional players prefer, thresholds of human perception, independent lab measurements for specific products (the lab site that was checked blocked automated reading, and no bot check was bypassed), and any claim about headsets or chairs, which have their own guides. Nothing here was tested.

Sources

Named here as plain text. Pages read in November 2026.

• Corsair, “What is polling rate? Does it affect gaming?”; press release for the SABRE v2 PRO, 18 September 2025
• Pulsar, X3 CrazyLight Mini product page
• Razer Newsroom, DeathAdder V4 Pro press release, 10 July 2025
• Cherry, MX2A Brown and MX Illuma Brown product pages; Cherry blog “Cherry MX switches at a glance”; Corsair, “Keyboard Switches: An Introduction”
• Wooting, “What is Wooting’s Rapid Trigger for analog keyboards”
• VESA, “VESA is Clearing Up Consumer Confusion on PC Display Performance” and “VESA Brings Clarity to Motion Blur in Digital Displays”
• iFixit, “Hall-Effect Joysticks”; Turtle Beach, “Hall Effect Controllers Explained”