When it comes to peripherals, you want the best. At times, it can mean the difference between virtual life and death, gaming-wise, anyway. There’s no better feeling than the touch of a premium product gracing your hands while you’re destroying the competition. Whether you’re a console gamer, PC player, or both, a controller is something that will get plenty of use.
The standard Xbox controller just isn’t enough
On PCs, the Xbox controller is the dominant controller, but did you know that it actually has some flaws? No, I’m not here to debate the difference between offset or inline analog sticks but rather the response and accuracy of the unit. Did you know the standard Xbox controller has rather poor accuracy and even worse input latency? If you don’t believe me, then check out this YouTube video.
See how the polling rate, or the rate at which the console checks for controller input, is regulated to 250 times per second, or 250Hz. That is only the rate at which a PC will check for input updates; the controller itself will only report at a rate of 124hz. That means every 64th check will result without a report, which in turn creates an average input latency of 6.8 milliseconds.
If that’s all confusing, just know that this is extremely slow in terms of performance compared to other controllers or even mice. Your standard polling rate for a mouse is 500Hz to 1000Hz, four or eight times greater than a standard Xbox controller. To compound this issue, the analog sticks’ accuracy is measurably worse when compared to third-party controllers.
That’s why I’m consistently telling friends and family looking to buy a controller or use one to make it their priority upgrade. Especially when it comes to PC because the Xbox controller itself can’t even be improved with overclocking, which is an article in itself. Regardless, that leaves players questioning how to spend their money.
The answer: Razer Wolverine V2 Chroma
You could spend hundreds to combat this issue, but I have a controller that costs a little less than your standard Xbox controller, at over $100 off. The Razer Wolverine V2 Chroma not only costs under $60, but it doubles the report rate of the standard Xbox controller at 250Hz. It also clocks in at an average input latency of under 4ms. That’s over 40% faster!
What makes it even better are all the other features this thing has. The controller features six additional, fully remappable buttons for players to configure as they see fit, not to mention the hair-trigger stops or tactile action buttons that reduce the travel distance of button presses. You know that mushy feeling you get when you press down on a button? Tactile buttons wholly eliminate it; think mechanical keyboard, but for a controller!
The only negative of this controller is the fact that it requires a wired connection. If you’re looking for a wireless version, you’ll need to spring quite a bit more for the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, which we also recently reviewed here at Windows Central. It even reaches an average latency when overclocked by one millisecond!
All in all, I can’t recommend the Razer Wolverine V2 Chroma enough. At its current cost, it’s the perfect price point for gamers looking to upgrade their sticks to the next level without having to break the bank on something like the V3 Chroma or the Thrustmaster eSwap Pro X. While you could spend significantly more on a controller that would yield better results, you would reach costs that exceed well over $150 to do it, and in my opinion, that’s money better spent on upgrading other areas of your gaming setup. Diminishing returns is a real thing.
