For years, the standard polling rate for gaming peripherals — mice, keyboards, etc. — has been 1,000 Hz, which equates to a delay, or latency, of 1 millisecond. This is significantly higher than the standard polling rate for non-gaming peripherals, by the way, which is 125 Hz (8ms latency) — in fact, it's eight times as fast.
Well, over the last couple of years, gaming companies have been asking: What if we made the polling rate even faster than 1,000 Hz? What if we made it eight times as fast?
And now just about every single ultra-lightweight, esports-oriented gaming mouse that comes out has up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate. And, of course, this raises the question every time: Do you actually need a mouse with an 8,000 Hz polling rate?
Polling rate is, simply put, how often your mouse communicates with your PC. That is, how often it reports mouse movement and clicks to your CPU. At a standard gaming mouse polling rate of 1,000 Hz, your mouse is communicating with your PC 1,000 times per second — or, once every millisecond. Hence, a 1,000 Hz polling rate means 1ms latency. At a standard non-gaming mouse polling rate of 125 Hz, your mouse is only communicating with your PC once every eight milliseconds — or an 8 ms latency. At a polling rate of 8,000 Hz, your mouse is communicating with your PC once every 0.125 milliseconds — a 0.125 ms latency.
Polling rate affects both mouse movement (if the polling rate is low enough, mouse movement might be jerky) and, more importantly, click latency — you want your mouse clicks to translate instantly.
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