To test the mouse I played a few shooters, just to see if
theres any improvement in the aiming (although its also player
dependent). I tested it only on HL2 and CS1.6. Results were incredible!
After drastically reducing the sensitivity I was considered to be a new
breed of cheater.
At this point I wanted to check the stability with higher
refresh rates. I opened Mouserate Switcher v1.1 and tweaked it in
steps. Each step was followed by a refresh rate stability check with
"Mouse Rate Checker".
After changing the rate to 1000MHz it wouldn’t remain
stable. As the snapshot above says the average is 740Hz.
Why having higher refresh rate at your USB bus is better?
It’s pretty simple. A higher refresh rate means faster
translation from movements into electronic signals. This means higher
accuracy and faster communication between the mouse and the PC. A Mouse
quality can also be measured by it’s stability at high refresh
rates, I haven’t checked it on my old Microsoft Optical Blue, but
Razer Diamondback’s pick was about 740Hz stable which is pretty
good.
For more info about overclocking your USB bus
read
here
Why is high DPI important
Resolution, measured by DPI and means Dots Per Inch. The higher
resolution you have the better the mouse translates your mouse
movements to electronic signals, which means accuracy. Unlike
refresh-rate this means pure movement accuracy as refresh-rate only
prevents mouse bouncing. Razer is pretty good at this since most of the
mice on the market are still using 800dpi and Razer doubles that. You
can really feel the difference between 800dpi and 1600dpi. It’s
like tripling your sensitivity and adding more movement accuracy to it.
Available in all colors of the spectrum!
As the Plasma color is a Limited Edition the Razer Diamondback
is also available with Chameleon Green or a Magma Red translucent
chassis.
Power supply consumption
After a brief check of Diamondback’s power consumption it
seems that it takes 100mA which is about 4/5 of the overall amount
supplied to one USB port (125mA)
In addition I have also ran the same check on my Microsoft Optical Blue
for comparison and got the same amount. Despite the fact Razer warned
us about this, I find this not very unusual.
Conclusions:
Razer Diamondback is a high quality mouse with great
performance. The higher dpi will benefit professional designers and
gamers alike. The design is great, and the Plama LED adds a lot to the
appearance. Even though the mouse seems a little small it has good grip
thanks to the anti-slip coating and the rubber side rails. At first I
though that the extra side-buttons were located in a bad
location. They were very hard to reach while gaming. After a few
hours of use it became a matter of getting used to the new design and
all was good. The software must be mentioned in Razer’s favor as
it is user friendly and delivers the goods.
Well done Razer!
Score: 9/10
I would like to thank Razer for sending us this sample and the
additional Razer goodies!
Written by George "zor" Levi
