Sensor

The Kova AIMO doesn't feature an upgraded sensor to the Kova 2016, which means it's the same PixArt PMW3320 as in the predecessor—ROCCAT tends to call it a Pro-Optic R6, by the way. It is a mid-tier optical sensor with a relatively low maximum tracking speed compared to most pricier models. By no means is it a bad sensor, though, but let the tests do the talking.

As for its technical specifications, the nominal maximum tracking speed and acceleration values are 80 IPS and 20 G. The resolution can be set from 250–7,000 CPI in steps of 50 CPI. Now, this sensor operates best on 500 and 1,000 CPI, and every value that isn't a multiple of 500 is interpolated, so it's best not to use those if you want to maximize possible performance—but even those steps are pretty good. As for anything above 3,500 CPI, the same can be said since that is the maximum resolution the PMW3320 can offer. The available polling rates are 1000, 500, 250, and 125 Hz, which are respective nominal response times of 1, 2, 4, and 8 ms. There is no lift-off distance setting in the software since the PMW3320 has a fixed, rather high LOD. The Kova AIMO tracked from 1 DVD in height, but not from 2 (testing was done using a black cloth mouse pad).

Paint Test

There is no jitter on the reasonable CPI steps, although a small amount of jitter is present at about 1,600 CPI and upward, and I couldn't detect any unwanted angle snapping or sensor lens rattle, either.

CPI Divergence

CPI divergence is low, and it goes into the negative. If you come from a mouse with positive divergence or none whatsoever, you may need to adjust your in-game sensitivity accordingly. Please note that this test is not 100% accurate, but resembles reality quite well.

Perfect Control Speed

Nominal perfect control speed (or PCS for short) is 80 IPS on this sensor, which translates to roughly 2 m/s. Thankfully, this value is a lot higher in reality as the sensor tracks perfectly until about 3 m/s, which most users won't hit unless they play on a low sensitivity (I would say the low PCS starts to become an issue at a true sensitivity of about 40 cm/360°).

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. There is pretty much no acceleration or deceleration here, or if there is any, it's due to human error.

Polling Rate & Stability

All polling rate values are nice and stable, without any suspicious outliers or periodic drops.

Input Lag & Smoothing

There is no measurable smoothing or any other delay below 4,050 CPI. At 4,050 CPI, a small amount of smoothing kicks in, resulting in about +1–2 ms of input lag that doesn't correlate with higher resolutions. For serious gaming, I would advise staying below the steps with smoothing. For anything else, feel free to use whatever you like, though within reasonable bounds as high CPI won't net you an advantage while resulting in more jitter for less accuracy, which is definitely present on the PMW3320.

Click Latency

Click latency is roughly 7.1 ms when compared to the SteelSeries Ikari, which is considered as the baseline with 0 ms. The data comes from this thread and my own testings. Testing was done with a Logitech G203 and the Kova AIMO, using qsxcv's program.