HyperX Pulsefire Raid

A great sensor, 11 buttons, and a reasonable price, so what’s the catch?

HYPERX IS NO STRANGER to the peripheral scene. Its Cloud range made a huge impact in the headset sector, and its keyboards have been solid too. Most recently, however, mice have become the company's focus.

The Pulsefire Raid is the latest mouse from HyperX. It has a mighty 11 buttons, nine of which are fully programmable, while the LMB and RMB can only be swapped between themselves. There are five thumb buttons, four of which are in the usual place above where your thumb naturally rests, and one further forward towards the end of your thumb, seemingly in Narnia for smaller handed users. The scroll wheel has movement to the left and right, as well as being able to click down, and a button directly behind the wheel defaults as a CPI adjustment button. While using any grip, the size of your hands (particularly your thumbs) will determine if you are able to reach the furthest forward of the five thumb buttons. This button is set to mute audio by default, and it is a really clever way of making the otherwise useless button something we came to like really quickly. Sure, it’s pointless in-game, but a quick mute button on your mouse is not to be sniffed at, especially when there are 10 other buttons to use.

Despite the out-of-reach button, the Raid is a comfortable mouse to hold. Your thumb rests nicely on soft textured rubber, as does your ring finger and little finger. The back of the mouse has a rather aggressive slope but it still works well with palm and claw grips. The shape of this mouse is a little strange. There is no lip around the top of the mouse–as you would find on most mice—to help reposition the mouse at low CPI. Usually, your fingers are in a groove, but with the

Raid the incline continues all the way to the top of the mouse, somewhat like trying to grip a smooth triangle. We found that when lifting the mouse off the mousepad it often slipped, so you have to reposition your hand again afterwards. This was particularly noticeable when using it in a fingertip grip. This is something that you would likely become accustomed to if you used it regularly, and it is only really noticeable when you’re using the mouse at low DPI to gain more table surface area, so it isn’t a huge issue.

GOOD TRACKING

Equipped with a Pixart 3389 sensor, the Pulsefire Raid tracks very well. This sensor trades blows with the Pixart 336x series and has no problems on any of the usual gaming surfaces. You have a lot of control over the sensitivity of the mouse as it can be programmed to run anywhere from 200CPI to 16,000CPI, with 50CPI increments. More usually with the 336x range, you are limited to 100CPI increments.

The CPI changes can be done in the NGenuity software, and it also has quite a substantial button-programming section. The software is in beta stages, and this is very apparent. Using it is clunky and far less intuitive than most other mouse software we’ve used. We also had to restart our system multiple times to get it working as intended. The less said about the software the better, but without the software you can only save one profile to the mouse.

Overall, the Pulsefire Raid is a great option for those who want a whole host of buttons but don’t want a bulky MOBA mouse. The 11 buttons are very useful in games, and the sensor is up to the task of ensuring that any bad gameplay fails are down to you. The software leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, but we imagine HyperX is working on this; it is still in the beta stage, after all. For the price you can’t go far wrong, but if you would prefer fewer buttons, or if you can spend a little bit more, there are better options on the market.