Sensor and Performance

The ASUS ROG Gladius III Wireless is equipped with the PixArt PAW3370. According to specifications, the 3370 is capable of up to 19,000 CPI, as well as a maximum tracking speed of 400 IPS, which equals 10.16 m/s. For the Gladius III Wireless, ASUS upped the maximum CPI to 26,000. Out of the box, four pre-defined CPI steps are available: 400, 800, 1600, and 3200.

All testing was done on the latest firmware. As such, results obtained on earlier firmware versions may differ from those presented hereafter.

CPI Accuracy

"CPI" (short for counts per inch) describes the number of counts registered by the mouse if it is moved exactly an inch. There are several factors (firmware, mounting height of the sensor not meeting specifications, mouse feet thickness, mousing surface, among others) which may contribute to nominal CPI not matching actual CPI. It is impossible to always achieve a perfect match, but ideally, nominal and actual CPI should differ as little as possible. In this test, I'm determining whether this is the case or not. However, please keep in mind that said variance will still differ from unit to unit, so your mileage may vary.


I've restricted my testing to the four most common CPI steps, which are 400, 800, 1600, and 3200. After having applied a new firmware given to me by ASUS, deviation is almost nonexistent. An excellent result.

Motion Delay

"Motion delay" encompasses all kinds of sensor lag. Any further sources of input delay will not be recorded in this test. The main thing I'll be looking for in this test is sensor smoothing, which describes an averaging of motion data across several capture frames in order to reduce jitter at higher CPI values, increasing motion delay along with it. The goal here is to have as little smoothing as possible. As there is no way to accurately measure motion delay absolutely, it can only be done by comparison with a control subject that has been determined to have the lowest possible motion delay. In this case, the control subject is a G403, whose 3366 has no visible smoothing across the entire CPI range. Note that the G403 is moved first and thus receives a slight head start.

Testing is restricted to 2.4 GHz mode as Bluetooth is not suitable for non-casual gaming applications.

Wired testing

First, I'm looking at two xCounts plots—generated at 1600 and 26,000 CPI—to quickly gauge whether there is any smoothing, which would be indicated by any visible "kinks." As you can see, such kinks are clearly on display in the 26,000 CPI plot, which suggests there is smoothing present. We can also see fairly low SPI timing jitter.


In order to determine motion delay, I'm looking at xSum plots generated at 1600, 19,000, and 26,000 CPI. The line further to the left denotes the sensor with less motion delay. 1600 CPI shows no motion delay differential that could be attributed to smoothing, though there is a minor delay of roughly 2 ms at the onset of motion, which is likely due to slow framerate ramp-up. At and above 5000 CPI, a motion delay differential of 6.5 ms is present, which is true all the way up to 26,000 CPI.

Wireless testing

Tracking is barely affected by the switch to wireless, which is commendable.


I'm again looking at plots generated at 1600, 19,000, and 26,000 CPI. Whereas 1600 CPI shows a motion delay differential of roughly 1 ms, at and above 5000 CPI, motion delay is around 7 ms. Keeping the motion delay differential established in wired mode above in mind, I can measure an isolated wireless delay of 1 ms. For the record, the typical behavior of the 3370 whereby motion delay is greater at the onset of motion is present, albeit just slightly pronounced at a cumulated differential of roughly 2 ms.

Speed-related Accuracy Variance (SRAV)

What people typically mean when they talk about "acceleration" is speed-related accuracy variance (or short SRAV). It's not about the mouse having a set amount of inherent positive or negative acceleration, but about the cursor not traveling the same distance if the mouse is moved the same physical distance at different speeds. The easiest way to test this is by comparison with a control subject that is known to have very low SRAV, which in this case is the G403. As you can see from the plot, no displacement between the two cursor paths can be observed, which confirms that SRAV is very low.

Perfect Control Speed

Perfect Control Speed (or PCS for short) is the maximum speed up to which the mouse and its sensor can be moved without the sensor malfunctioning in any way. I've only managed to hit a measly 4.5 m/s (which is within the proclaimed PCS range), at which no sign of the sensor malfunctioning can be observed.

Polling Rate Stability

Considering the Gladius III Wireless is usable as a regular wired mouse as well, I'll be testing polling rate stability for both wired and wireless use.

Wired testing


Aside from the odd outlier, all available polling rate settings (125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz) look nice and stable. Polling stability is unaffected by any of the available RGB lighting effects.

Wireless testing
For wired mice, polling-rate stability merely concerns the wired connection between the mouse (SPI communication) and the USB. For wireless mice, another device that needs to be kept in sync between the first two is added to the mix: the wireless dongle/wireless receiver. I'm unable to measure all stages of the entire end-to-end signal chain individually, so testing polling-rate stability at the endpoint (the USB) has to suffice here.


First, I'm testing whether SPI, wireless, and USB communication are synchronized. Any of these being out of sync would be indicated by at least one 2 ms report, which would be the result of any desynchronization drift accumulated over time. As you can see, several periodic off-period polls are visible, likely the result of a desynchronization drift.



Second, I'm testing the general polling-rate stability of the individual polling rates in wireless mode. Running the Gladius III Wireless at a lower polling rate can have the benefit of extending battery life. Except for 250 Hz, which shows periodic instability, all available polling rates look and perform just fine.

Paint Test

This test is used to indicate any potential issues with angle snapping (non-native straightening of linear motion) and jitter, along with any sensor lens rattle. As you can see, no issues with angle snapping can be observed. No jitter is visible at 1600 CPI. 4950 CPI is the highest CPI step without any smoothing and shows minor jitter, which is eliminated at 5000 CPI. 26,000 CPI then shows major jitter. Lastly, there is no sensor lens movement.

Lift-off Distance

The Gladius III Wireless offers multiple ways of adjusting LOD: several pre-calibrated surface options, two pre-defined LOD levels (high/low), and manual calibration. Through a recent update, ASUS has disentangled these options a bit. By default, the "no calibration" preset is active, which has the sensor not track at a height of 1 DVD if set to "low." If set to "high," the sensor tracks at a height of 1 DVD, but not at a height of 2 DVDs (1.2 mm<x<2.4 mm, x being LOD height). Furthermore, several pre-calibrated surfaces are available to choose from, which then can be fine-tuned manually by adjusting the high/low-selection. Performing a manual calibration may lower LOD beyond the default. In my case, doing so resulted in an LOD below 1 DVD.

Click Latency

Since mechanical switches are being used for the buttons in most computer mice, debouncing is required in order to avoid unintended double clicks. Debouncing typically adds a delay (along with any potential processing delay), which shall be referred to as click latency. As there is no way to measure said delay directly, it has to be done by comparing it to a control subject, which in this case is the Logitech G203. Using the ROG Micro switches installed by default, click latency has been measured to be roughly +0.2 ms when compared to the SteelSeries Ikari, which is considered as the baseline with 0 ms. Standard deviation is 0.68 ms. Using the included Omron D2FP-FN optical switches, the less accurate "bump test" suggests a click latency that is even lower. Please keep in mind that the measured value is not the absolute click latency. Comparison data comes from this thread as well as my own testing, using qsxcv's program.

The main button switches were measured to be running at 1.93 V. I'm not aware of the voltage specifications of the ROG Micro Switches, but 1.93 V seems rather low to me.