I’ve had the privilege of becoming IGN’s “mice guy” in 2025, and since then I’ve amassed enough delivery boxes to build a small castle, covered my desk in dongles, and, most importantly, clicked new gaming mice tens of thousands of times.
I’ve tested 15 mice this year (you can read my existing reviews, with plenty more to come in 2026). I haven’t scored them all but after sizing each of them up, three stand out, each satisfying very different tastes.
While they’re not necessarily the three highest-scoring, they’re the trio that comes to mind whenever a friend asks me to recommend one.
Corsair Sabre V2 Pro: The Light One
When I held this mouse for the first time, I cackled like a small child on a trampoline. It is almost laughably light at 36g. I put more coffee in my French press each morning. That weightlessness is not just a gimmick – as I wrote in my review, it feels like an extension of my arm and zips across my mousepad.
Most mice badged lightweight, including our picks for the best lightweight mice, are between 50g and 65g. For example, the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Mini is my favorite compact mouse and is hardly heavy at just 59g. But when I swap it in for the Sabre V2 Pro it feels like a brick in my hand.
The Sabre V2 Pro is light to a fault. I have no idea how much Bluetooth modules weigh but I’m assuming Corsair omitted it to keep the mouse as light as possible. That decision, combined with a substantial corded dongle, makes it difficult to travel with – a shame because a mouse this light should surely be portable. The side buttons feel cheap, with one disappearing almost entirely inside the shell of the mouse when you press it, and while that shell is mostly sturdy, I found a spot on the top where it caved like play-dough when I pushed.
But I forget all those problems the moment it’s back on my mousepad and I’m whipping it side-to-side, grinning between headshots. It has brought me more joy than any other mouse I’ve tested and if weight is your top priority, then you’ll love it too.
SteelSeries Rival 3 Gen 2 Wired: The Budget One
As I hunt for the best gaming mouse, my testing skews expensive: High-end mice cost $100 or more. This month, however, I finally tried the Steelseries Rival 3 Gen 2, an older mouse that you can often buy for less than $30/£30. It reminded me that a good gaming mouse needn’t upset your monthly budget, and that a lot of the flashy numbers attached to expensive mice are marketing guff.
On paper it lags behind. Its polling rate – the number of times it reports its position to your computer – is capped at 1,000Hz, where many modern mice reach 4,000 or 8,000Hz. Its maximum dots per inch (DPI), a measure of sensitivity, is either 8.5K or 18K, depending on whether you go wired or wireless. Again, that’s far behind the competition. So are its maximum tracking speed and its click latency, the lag between your physical press and it registering on your PC.
In practice, I barely feel a difference.
Take the polling rate. My 240Hz refresh rate screen and solid PC specs are good enough for me to clock a difference as I push high-end mice up to 2,000Hz and 4,000Hz (hand on heart, I cannot feel any difference with 8,000Hz). But those changes are so small that sometimes I worry I’m imagining them. Slender benefits are worth less, in my eyes, than the price drop to the Rival 3 Gen 2 mouse. It is simply excellent value.
The wireless version is solid but weighs more than 100g, which is too hefty for me to recommend wholeheartedly. The wired version is a more reasonable 77g, and cheaper too. It is one mouse I’d recommend without hesitation to anyone on a budget.
Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro: The Michelin-Starred One
One mouse to rule them all. I reviewed the Razer DeathAdder V2 in 2020 and used it for years afterwards, so I expected good things from the V4 Pro. The $170/£170 price only raised my expectations.
Somehow, I was still blown away. This is a near-perfect gaming mouse and the best I’ve ever tested.
It’s not really down to its impressive specs sheet – although that certainly helps. Alongside 8,000Hz polling rate, you get 45,000 DPI and 900 inches per second of tracking. Those numbers are mostly meaningless but they are industry-leading, and I like having the reassurance that no matter how far computing tech advances in the next five years, my mouse will never be the limiting factor.
It’s everything around those specs that I love. Its weighty, spherical, embossed dongle houses three LEDs that tell me everything I need to know about my mouse at a glance. Its perfectly weighted left and right clicks, crisp and bouncy, and its taught, tactile scroll wheel. Its sturdy shell and grippy coating. Its mammoth battery, which lasts 150 hours at 1,000Hz polling rate.
If I’m being hypercritical – and I think you should be for a mouse costing this much money – then it’d be nice if Bluetooth were an option, if the DPI button was on the top of the mouse rather than the bottom, and if Razer’s Synapse software was less bloated.
But those are mere gripes. It is the ultimate gaming mouse and if money was no object, this is the one you should get.
