Sensor

The MM530 operates with the current flagship of optical mouse sensors, the PMW3360 made by PixArt. It is quite extraordinary in this price segment for sure, and a very nice touch. It is very responsive, feels raw and snappy, with perfect control at very high speeds, so you pretty much cannot make it spin out.

Is it really that much of an upgrade from the previous models, though? I would say yes, definitely. The Mizar used an Avago ADNS-9800 laser sensor, which, just like all similar ones, had some issues with speed-related accuracy variance. The Alcor, on the other hand, was equipped with a then top optical sensor, the Avago ADNS-3090. Now, the main issue with that sensor was the high lift-off distance, but I think it is safe to say that the PMW3360 is better in almost every single aspect.

The resolution can be changed from 100–12,000 CPI, in increments of 100 CPI. The polling rate can be set to 125, 250, 500, or 1000 Hz. There are two lift-off distance settings, one marked as low and another as high. The low setting is about as high as a DVD, but barely tracked on a black cloth pad.

Paint Test

As you can see, there is no noticeable jitter at the reasonable CPI steps. There is no unwanted angle snapping or measurable sensor lens rattle either.

CPI Divergence

The CPI accuracy is a bit off. There are noticeable deviations in all CPI steps. Many mice have this issue, but strangely, the MM520 did not, and it shares the same sensor and lens with the MM530. I think this might be firmware-related.

Perfect Control Speed

The PCS is extremely high (above 7 m/s), which means that you won't ever reach it normally, even if you are a very low sensitivity gamer. It doesn't decrease on higher CPI levels either. As you can see, there is a small bulge on the left side of each graph above the nominal 2000 CPI setting. That's where the smoothing turns on, adding 1-2 ms of input lag; more on that a bit later.

Speed Related Accuracy Variance

This test shows the sensor's accuracy at different speeds. You can see me doing a fast swipe to the right before I slowly slide the mouse back to its original position.

The displacement is almost entirely caused by human error in this test. The SRAV is negligible in our case, which is just as one would expect it to be with this sensor.


Here's the same test done with the MouseTester software.

Polling Rate

All set values are correct and stable. Even though it may not seem like it, the results should actually look like this.

Input Lag

The control subject (blue graph) is a Ninox Venator at 800 CPI. In every single PMW3360 mouse I have tested so far, there is at least +2 ms of input lag right above the 2000 DPI setting. The MM530 has around +1 ms, which is caused by the smoothing I've wrote about above. If you are a high-level FPS player, I would advise staying below 2000 DPI.

Click Latency

The click latency is roughly +8.3 ms compared to the SteelSeries Ikari, which is considered as a baseline with 0 ms. The control subject was a Ninox Venator, which has +4.5 ms compared to the Ikari. I ran the bump test twenty times and averaged the results. There were no outliers, so the measurements should be correct. Most newer Zowie mice are at around +8 ms as well, and people win million dollar CS:GO tournaments with them, so I don't think anyone needs better than this.