Do you need a mouse with an 8K polling rate?

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?

What is polling rate, and what does it mean?

Polling rate is, simply put, how often your mouse communicates with your PC. …