Sensor and Performance

The Corsair Sabre RGB Pro is equipped with the PixArt PMW3392, which I believe to be a 3389 with a custom SROM. According to specifications, the 3392 is capable of up to 18,000 CPI, as well as a maximum tracking speed of 400 IPS, which equals 10.16 m/s. Out of the box, five pre-defined CPI steps are available: 400, 800, 1200, 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. Unless noted otherwise, I'll exclusively test the Sabre RGB Pro at 1000 Hz on this page. This is done both to provide the full picture and establish a baseline for testing polling rates higher than 1000 Hz, which follows on the next page.

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. As you can see, deviation is exclusively positive and quite large, which is a below average result. In order to account for the measured deviation, adjusted steps of 400, 750, 1500, and 3000 CPI have been used for testing. As the 3392 supports CPI adjustment in increments of 1, even finer corrections would have been possible.

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.


First, I'm looking at two xCounts plots generated at 1600 and 18,000 CPI. Typically, the 18,000 CPI plot would show such "kinks" given the 3389 usually has 32 frames of smoothing at and above 1900 CPI, which is then doubled at 6000 CPI and 11,300 CPI. As you can see, no kinks are visible at 18,000 CPI, which would lead one to think there's no smoothing, but that's not the case. We'll have to tend to xSum testing to get a better idea of what is going on. What we can see, however, is clean tracking, with little to no SPI timing jitter.


In order to determine motion delay, I'm looking at xSum plots generated at 1600, 3200, and 18,000 CPI. The line further to the left denotes the sensor with less motion delay. As you can see, neither 1600 nor 3200 CPI show any motion delay differential, whereas 18,000 CPI shows the usual amount of delay expected from a 3389 at this step. Interestingly, smoothing only kicks in at 6000 CPI on the Sabre RGB Pro. At and above 6000 CPI, 32 frames of smoothing are applied; at and above 6400 CPI, 64 frames of smoothing are applied; and lastly, at and above 12,000 CPI, 128 frames of smoothing are applied, as documented in the last plot. The fact that these numbers of frames of smoothing each result in the motion delay differential one would typically expect leads me to the belief the 3392 in the Sabre RGB Pro is running at default framerates.

Speed-related Accuracy Variance (SRAV)

What people typically mean when they talk about "acceleration" is speed-related accuracy variance (or SRAV for short). 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

All tested polling rates (125 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, and 1000 Hz) look nice and stable. Polling stability is unaffected by any RGB setting.

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. 5900 CPI is the highest step without smoothing and shows minor jitter. 6400 CPI is the first step with significant smoothing applied and shows accordingly lessened jitter. 18,000 CPI shows moderate jitter owing to a ridiculous amount of smoothing. Lastly, there is no sensor lens movement.

Lift-off Distance

The Sabre RGB Pro does not offer any pre-defined LOD levels, but does provide the option to run a manual surface calibration, which can lower LOD beyond the default level. Using the default calibration, the sensor tracks only intermittently at a height of 1 DVD. Keep in mind that LOD may vary slightly depending on the mousing surface (pad) it is being used on.

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. At a polling rate of 8000 Hz and "Enable Button Response Optimization" set to on, click latency has been measured to be roughly +1.6 ms when compared to the SteelSeries Ikari, which is considered as the baseline with 0 ms. At a polling rate of 8000 Hz and "Enable Button Response Optimization" set to off, click latency is roughly +5.1 ms. 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.