Ever since the release of the original Viper in 2019, its shape had remained largely unchanged. Last year, Razer tested the waters for a new shape with the Viper V3 Hyperspeed, moving away from the lower profile of the original towards a bulkier appearance incorporating design elements of the ever popular Logitech G Pro X Superlight. The reception of these changes has been largely positive, which is why it is no wonder that the Viper V3 Pro continues using this shape, without any further changes. Shape aside, improvements brought by the Viper V3 Pro over the Viper V2 Pro are mostly incremental. At 54 g, the Viper V3 Pro weighs 4 g less than the Viper V2 Pro, which is remarkable in that the Viper V3 Pro is the larger mouse. Even more impressive is the fact that despite the lower weight, the Viper V3 Pro is built as well as if not better than the Viper V2 Pro. On my sample, there is no rattle when shaking, no flexing or creaking of the shell when applying lateral pressure, and actuating the side buttons by pressing below them is impossible regardless of the applied force. This has been achieved by utilizing a slightly different design compared to previous models, where an endoskeleton holding the PCBs for the scroll wheel as well as main and side buttons also supports the top shell, improving structural rigidity in the process.

Much like the Viper V2 Pro, the Viper V3 Pro utilizes Razer's 3rd-generation optical switches for the main buttons. Accordingly, these are on roughly the same level in terms of button response, with low to moderate pre and post-travel, along with firm and snappy actuation. Much like on the Viper V3 Hyperspeed, lateral button movement is low, even when explicitly provoked. Surface-mounted switches from CF are used for the side buttons, which are familiar from the Viper V3 Hyperspeed. Of note is the minimal amount of post-travel, and pre-travel is rather low, too. That said, feedback may still be considered lacking, which is typically a given for a surface-mounted switch. The biggest change over the Viper V2 Pro is the scroll wheel. Instead of a Kailh encoder used on the former, an encoder from TTC (blue, white core) sees use, which had already been seen on the Viper V3 Hyperspeed before, where it did rather poorly, however. Whether TTC made any changes to this encoder since, or whether the different size behaves differently, I do not know, but on the Viper V3 Pro, this encoder excels. Noise levels are largely under control, and tactility is great, with well-defined steps allowing for controlled scrolling, without being overly stiff. As for the feet, these are still made of the same material, which is pure PTFE without any dye, but their footprint has been increased significantly over the Viper V2 Pro. This is a change that had been requested by professional players, and has the Viper V3 Pro approach the G Pro X Superlight in this regard as well.

In terms of internals, the Viper V3 Pro debuts Razer's latest Focus Pro 35K Gen-2 sensor. On the consumer-facing side of things, improvements over the previous Focus Pro 30K are rather marginal, with the most notable novelty being the ability to adjust CPI in native steps of 1. This effectively eliminates any woes relating to CPI accuracy, as one can now achieve perfectly accurate steps. Razer even goes one step further in achieving this goal by implementing a software function called "sensitivity matcher," which is supposed to match the effective "sensitivity" by normalizing CPI between the Viper V3 Pro and whatever previous mouse one was using. In my testing, this doesn't work particularly well, however, which is why I'd still turn to tools such as MouseTester to perform these measurements oneself. For the record, CPI deviation is positive to a non-negligible degree on the Viper V3 Pro, but given the ability to account for this in full, I consider this a non-issue.

Whereas the Viper V2 Pro only came with a regular USB full-speed wireless dongle by default, and one had to purchase the USB high-speed HyperPolling Wireless Dongle first to allow for polling rates above 1000 Hz, the Viper V3 Pro already ships with the latter. After a firmware update rolled out last year, up to 8000 Hz are now possible in wireless operation instead of 4000 Hz. That said, if running the same dongle firmware, the Viper V3 Pro performs no differently from the Viper V2 Pro with the HyperPolling Wireless Dongle. General tracking is on the same level, as SPI timing is tightened by MotionSync being enabled permanently, and no smoothing is applied at any point of the CPI range, allowing one to use any step without a latency penalty. Since the Focus Pro 35K Gen-2 also brings improved jitter handling, jitter levels at equivalent CPI steps will be lower on the Viper V3 Pro compared to the Viper V2 Pro. In addition, all polling rates up to and including 1000 Hz are fully stable, and motion delay is on an excellent level at 0.5 ms relative to the Logitech G403 (control subject). The same is generally true of polling rates above 1000 Hz, including 8000 Hz, though due to what can be presumed to be an antenna-related and unit-specific issue, my testing has not been fully conclusive in this regard. Supplementary testing, however, suggests that polling is stable throughout, the odd off-period poll here and there notwithstanding. Motion delay is on the same level as previously, achieving a lead over the G403 of roughly 0.6 ms at 8000 Hz, though this marginally falls short of what other mice such as the Finalmouse UltralightX or CHERRY XTRFY M64/M68 Pro are able to show at their respective best settings. In terms of click latency, the Viper V3 Pro likewise delivers the same as the Viper V2 Pro with the HyperPolling Wireless Dongle, averaging just 0.4 ms at 8000 Hz, trading blows with the aforementioned two mice. Lastly, and for the record, I haven't been able to reproduce any of the issues reported by some users regarding weird behavior after lift-off and related reports when using the latest firmware.

Razer cites up to 95 hours of battery life at 1000 Hz, which is only marginally improved over the 90 hours cited for the Viper V2 Pro, albeit with the USB full-speed dongle, so the comparison isn't apples-to-apples. When doing the comparison with the HyperPolling Wireless Dongle, the Viper V3 Pro clearly fares better, at 95 hours instead of 80 hours for 1000 Hz, and 40 hours instead of 24 hours at 4000 Hz. Since the Viper V3 Pro has a fuel gauge IC, allowing for very precise and consistent battery life readings, gauging expected battery life can be done quite accurately on the Viper V3 Pro. Due to the aforementioned presumably antenna-related issue my unit appears to be suffering from, my testing has been inconclusive in this regard, as frequently missed polls lead to an increased number of retries in my case, in turn resulting in non-linear battery drain. That said, given the near-equity with the Viper V2 Pro, it is reasonable to assume that the Viper V3 Pro will reach the cited numbers in practice. Much like the Viper V2 Pro, the Viper V3 Pro uses a 300 mAh battery (306 mAh to be precise), and this one again has been optimized for capacity, resulting in a snail-like charge speed of around 0.150 A. While most people will probably favor capacity over speed, the issue here is the charging cable, whose extraordinary stiffness prevents playing while charging virtually completely. Some level of stiffness is expected, given that additional shielding is necessary to ensure signal integrity at 8000 Hz, but the stiffness exhibited by the charging cable goes far beyond. It appears that the charging cable was made to fully comply with the EU's Radio Equipment Directive, which will be effective as of 2025, so Razer isn't necessarily to blame here, but either way, one should be aware of the limitations present in this regard.

For this review, I originally planned to use Synapse 4 Beta, as it'll be the go-to software for the Viper V3 Pro going forward, but regardless of what I tried, I was unable to get Synapse 4 to detect the mouse, which is why I had to abandon this attempt prematurely. Synapse 3, on the other hand, worked without issue, and even comes with several new features, such as the already mentioned sensitivity matcher and a fairly sophisticated acceleration function, along with the ability to modify the sensor angle to account for any user bias on that front, and both of these settings even are saved to the on-board memory. Synapse 3 still has a rather pronounced hunger for RAM, and the number of processes running in the background is as high as ever. Still, purely for stability reasons I'd rather stick with Synapse 3, at least for the time being.

All in all, the Viper V3 Pro is a competent release, which, while not perfect, will tick most boxes for the majority of people. That is, with one exception, which of course is the price. While one could argue that at $159.99, the Viper V3 Pro is actually offered for less than the Viper V2 Pro given that the $29.99 HyperPolling Wireless Dongle already comes bundled, it certainly does not qualify as a bargain. For what it's worth, the Viper V3 Pro is undoubtedly the superior mouse over the $159.99 Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2, but fierce competition comes from Razer themselves. At $84.99 for the HyperPolling Wireless Dongle bundle, the Viper V3 Hyperspeed essentially delivers the same performance, with the only differences being the main button switches (mechanical instead of optical) and weight (80 g w/ AA-battery instead of 54 g). The latter point in particular will sway many people to the Viper V3 Pro, but whether that is worth paying an extra $75 for is at least up for debate. In any case, the Viper V3 Pro is among the top picks in the wireless gaming mice market currently, and earns our Recommended award.