- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Our Verdict
- Test Results
- Compared to others
- Discussions
The SteelSeries Rival 600 is a great gaming mouse. It has an excellent build quality, but it's a little less portable mainly because it's a wired mouse. It has excellent ergonomics and its weight is customizable. It has excellent overall performance and its software allows for a great level of customization too. Unfortunately, this great mouse may not suitable for people with small hands, as they may have a hard time reaching some of the buttons.
Our Verdict
This is a decent mouse for mixed usage. It's designed mainly for gaming, but you shouldn't have issues using it in the office. It has excellent ergonomics and a high degree of customization, as you can modify the button configuration and remove parts to make it lighter. It has a decent latency and excellent overall performance. Unfortunately, this mouse isn't for those who have small hands, as they won't be able to reach some of the buttons.
See our Mixed Usage recommendationsThe SteelSeries Rival 600 is a very good mouse for office use. It has an excellent build quality and a great degree of customization. Unfortunately, it isn't wireless, but this might not be that important in office environments. The ergonomics of this mouse are excellent, but it's primarily designed for use with the right hand. Finally, if you have small hands, this mouse isn't a good choice.
The Rival 600 is a poor mouse for those who travel a lot. It's an always-wired mouse that's not comfortable to carry around.
This is a great mouse for use with FPS video games. Although the mouse has excellent overall performance and is highly customizable with a large number of buttons, its on the heavier side. Nevertheless, it has a very low latency and has exceptional ergonomics, so you can customize it to your liking, and has excellent build quality. Unfortunately, this mouse isn't suitable if you have small hands.
See our Video Games (FPS) recommendationsThe Rival 600 is an amazing mouse for playing MMO video games. It has a few programmable buttons and an excellent build quality. The accompanying software is very versatile, and the ergonomics allow you to customize it to your liking. Unfortunately, if you have small hands, this mouse isn't ideal as you won't be able to reach some buttons.
See our Video Games (MMO) recommendationsThis mouse is decent for ultra-light gaming. You can reduce its heavy weight by getting rid of all the weights, but it's still heavier than most ultra-light gaming mice.
- 7.8 Mixed Usage
- 7.9 Office/Multimedia
- 5.3 Travel
- 8.0 Video Games (FPS)
- 8.8 Video Games (MMO)
- 7.0 Ultra-Light Gaming
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Great for gaming.
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Excellent performance.
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Outstanding ergonomics.
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Excellent customization.
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Not great for traveling due to wired-only use.
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Not recommended for smaller hands.
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Rigid cable.
- Update 12/20/2019: Converted to Test Bench 0.8.1.
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Test Results
The SteelSeries Rival 600 has a typical gamer look with a few aggressive angles. It's made of plastic and is a mix of black and gray. The side panels are removable, enabling weight customization, and the mouse has eight RBG zones, including the large logo on the back. There are three customizable buttons on the left side that make the mouse quite versatile but are only suitable for use with the right hand.
It's highly customizable, as you can remove the side panels and adjust the eight 4-gram weights any way you like. This means that you can achieve a center of gravity that'll satisfy your needs, but still is on the heavier side.
This mouse has poor overall portability. It's slightly bulky due to the lack of provision for bundling the cable.
The SteelSeries Rival 600's overall build quality is remarkable. The entire build feels sturdy, as there's no squeaking or shaking. The sides attach magnetically and feel very solid. Finally, the mouse has a very nice click.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 has outstanding ergonomics. The removable silicone-made side panels have a nice grip. While the panels and the buttons are on, the button placement makes this mouse only suitable for right-handed use. If you remove the side panels for lightweight gaming, this mouse becomes ambidextrous. Unfortunately, this mouse may not suitable for small hands with any of the common grips.
The palm grip is good for most hand sizes, but may not be suitable for small hand sizes as you may not reach some buttons easily.
The claw grip is suitable for most hand sizes, but small hands may not be able to reach some buttons.
The Rival 600 is difficult to use with the fingertip grip if you have a small hand, as reaching some buttons might not be comfortable.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 is a wired-only mouse.
The cable that comes with this mouse is mediocre. Even though it's detachable, you have to always use it as there's no battery or any other connectivity method. It's probably made like this for easy replacement or transport. Unfortunately, the bends from the packaging are hard to straighten out, and since this is a wired-only mouse, this can be annoying.
- Rival 600 Gaming Mouse
- Product Information Guide
- Detachable USB cable
- Weight box with eight 4g weights
The Rival 600 has two sensors: one for tracking, like all mice, and one for depth. This way, the mouse minimizes the unnecessary movement when you pick it up and put it down.
The click latency of the SteelSeries Rival 600 is very low and it will feel very responsive. Most people won't notice any delay.
The Rival 600 has an excellent overall performance. It has a very wide CPI range and you can adjust it to your favorite DPI using small DPI adjustment steps. Thanks to its depth sensor, you can also customize the lift-off distance. Finally, there's a calibration function built in that allows you to calibrate to the surface.
Update 02/28/2020: We've updated the number of programmable inputs to '9' as we had previously not counted the ability to reprogram both the scroll up and down inputs.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 has a great number of buttons, all of which can be customized. The DPI switching button can only switch between two different DPI settings, which might be limiting in some games or applications.
This Rival 600 has a mediocre mouse wheel. Although there's wheel incrementation feedback, you can't unlock the wheel to scroll infinitely. This can be annoying if you want to quickly scroll through large documents.
The Rival 600's accompanying software is excellent. It allows you to customize your mouse, and you can save your changes to the onboard memory so that you can use it on another computer. We noticed, however, that the mouse uses the onboard memory as long as the other computer doesn't have the SteelSeries Engine 3 software installed. In this case, the software settings prevail over the onboard memory.
Compared to other mice
The SteelSeries Rival 600 is a rather heavy gaming mouse and it sets itself apart by its satisfying click. It has superb performance with a great ergonomic design, but people with small hands might feel it's too big for them. You can also reduce the weight of the mouse tremendously, although this might affect the comfort of your grip.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 and the Logitech G502 Hero are both great wired gaming mice. Both mice should be comfortable with any grip type for everyone except those with small hands, though medium-sized hands may have a difficult time with fingertip grip on the G502 Hero. The G502 Hero has a slightly better cable, more programmable buttons, and a much better scroll mouse wheel. On the other hand, the SteelSeries is lighter and has better ergonomics.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 and the Razer DeathAdder Elite are both great wired gaming mice. They feel equally well-made and are both designed for right-handed use. The Razer is better for people with small hands, as it can be used comfortably in palm grip with any hand size. On the other hand, the SteelSeries will be difficult to get a comfortable hold of with any grip for people with small hands. The Razer's CPI can also be adjusted in increments of 1, which is outstanding, whereas the SteelSeries uses increments of 100.
The Glorious Model O and the SteelSeries Rival 600 are both great wired gaming mice. While the Glorious Model O is a bit lighter, they're both similar size and should be comfortable in all grip types for everyone except those with small hands. The cable on the Glorious Model O feels less rigid and stiff, but the SteelSeries has more programmable buttons. The latency is also lower on the Model O, though they both should feel quite responsive.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 and the Razer Mamba Elite are both great wired gaming mice. While the CPI is very low on the Razer, the SteelSeries is still low enough that it shouldn't be noticeably unresponsive. The Razer has more programmable buttons, and a more customizable CPI range, while the SteelSeries' software can be installed on both macOS or Windows, which is nice. However, those with smaller hands will likely be better off with the Razer, as they should be able to reach all the buttons more comfortably.
The SteelSeries Rival 500 is a better wired MMO mouse than the SteelSeries Rival 600. The 500 can be used by all hand sizes with palm grip, and only small hands will have a difficult time reaching all the buttons with claw grip, while the 600 is too long for people with small hands with any grip type. While both mice are designed for MMO games, the Rival 500 has more than double the amount of programmable buttons. On the other hand, the Rival 600 is quite a bit lighter, so it may be a better choice if you're a fan of FPS games.
The Corsair Nightsword RGB and the SteelSeries Rival 600 are fairly similar performing mice, although the Rival 600 has a small edge. It feels more comfortable in-hand and can be used with a fingertip grip. Although its CPI error is higher, it's more consistent, resulting in a more stable control. On the other hand, the Nightsword has 3 more buttons than the Rival 600.
The SteelSeries Rival 600 is a much better mouse for FPS games than the ROCCAT Tyon. The Rival 600 is a bit lighter, has a slightly lower click latency, and has a wider adjustable CPI range. Both mice are too large for people with small hands to use comfortably, but if you have medium or large hands and use fingertip grip, the Rival 600 is much easier to hold. On the other hand, the Tyon has way more programmable buttons than the Rival 600.
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