This is part 3 of our Christmas Gift Guide for this year. Feel free to also check the previous part for more gift ideas!
Gamers, this gift guide is the one for you. Whether you are gifting yourself a nice, new, shiny gaming peripheral or to someone else, there are plenty here that you can browse and pick from. The gaming peripherals include gaming keyboards, mice, and headsets from various brands such as Razer, SteelSeries, HyperX, ROCCAT, and more.
Gaming Keyboard
Let’s start with the gaming keyboard. We’ve reviewed various range of gaming keyboards this year: wireless, wired, TKL (Tenkeyless), mini, full-size, you name it. And while it is quite hard to point the winner of all these (because they are all great and it also depends on your preferences), we certainly can name a few that make it to this list.
If you are looking for the fastest and most responsive keyboard with 8,000Hz polling rate, CORSAIR K70 RGB TKL is an excellent choice. With 1.0mm actuation point on the Optical switches, you’ll get a sweet treatment combo. If you want a full-size keyboard though, grab the CORSAIR K70 RGB PRO instead.
And when you just can’t decide whether you want a full-size keyboard or a TKL, why not both? ASUS ROG Claymore II is a unique keyboard that allows you to switch between a TKL and full-size keyboard with a unique, numpad attach/detach mechanism. Not only that, you can even attach the numpad on the left side of the keyboard. This gives you the most ergonomic form while holding the mouse but at the same time, you still have a numpad handy for punching numbers on those spreadsheets.
Have a small desk to game? The SteelSeries Apex Pro Mini Wireless has a 60% form factor with durable aluminium alloy material and Double Shot PBT Keycaps. Equipped with SteelSeries OmniPoint 2.0 switches, you can fully customise the actuation points PER key, ranging from 0.2mm to 3.8mm. It’s one mean, crazy, mini, wireless, gaming keyboard. If you don’t need that full customisation, you can get the cheaper CORSAIR K70 Pro Mini Wireless instead and it also supports 8,000Hz polling rate like the bigger brother.
For the most low profile, ultra-slim keyboard, the winner is Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro. The low profile switches and flat keyboard design look really cool on the desk and helps with ergonomics. It comes with TKL and full size options.
Gaming Mouse
We’ve had plenty of great gaming mice this year, especially wireless ones. Each of them has great wireless performance in terms of stability but more importantly, the sensor within the mouse. I couldn’t really find any faults in terms of sensor consistency and performance, and feel free to watch my Overwatch 2 gameplay clips embedded inside the review articles.
SteelSeries Prime Mini Wireless has the smallest size – it’s called “Mini” for a reason. It’s small, it’s light, but it also has up to 100 hours of battery life – so don’t let the size fool you.
Razer Viper V2 Pro and DeathAdder V3 Pro are the next powerful, wireless gaming mice from Razer. The DeathAdder V3 Pro has a wider shape, weighing at 63 grams. My small hand prefers the shape of the Viper V2 Pro a little bit more, weighing at only 59 grams. They both don’t have any RGB and you need to use the included grip tape if you want a better grip (to make them lighter).
If you don’t mind a slightly heavier mouse, I’m currently using the CORSAIR KATAR ELITE WIRELESS and the shape somehow fits my hand the best (it’s perfect for claw/fingertip users). It weighs 79 grams so it may not be the mouse you want if you are looking for the lightest one possible. However, I find that the extra bit of weight helps me with aiming and I like that the mouse has a nice grip surface built-in.
Gaming Headset
The winner of this list is definitely SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless which, in my opinion, is the best of the best wireless gaming headsets out there. It has a hot-swappable battery system so you’ll never have to plug a cable on the headset anymore, ever. It feels premium, has great sound, and excellent features all around like Active Noise Cancellation if you are planning to wear it outside.
A similar headset from Razer is the Razer Barracuda Pro. While this one doesn’t have a hot-swappable battery system, it’s still Razer’s flagship, wireless, hybrid gaming headset that you can use for gaming while commuting (or watching movies). It has ANC, Ambient mode, THX Spatial Audio, and comes with a carrying case – perfect for traveling on the plane.
For gaming on a budget, which also makes a perfect, affordable gift, look no further than the HyperX Cloud Core Wireless. Even with an affordable price, it has DTS Headphone:X spatial audio, great wireless signal strength, and great audio positioning in game.
Gaming Drive
And maybe not exactly a peripheral, but definitely related and important to your gaming needs: a fast, stable drive to store and play your games on. The fastest SSD I’ve ever get a hands on is the WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe SSD and it’s sitting inside my computer at the moment to play all my games. With 7,300MB/s reading and 6,600MB/s writing speed, this drive screams fast and you’ll see less loading times on the screen when restoring your saved game or going to a new area in large, open-world games.
Ok, enough about reference to PC Gaming. How about console gaming like the PS5? For this, there are plenty of supported NVMe M2 SSDs as well that you can plug into your PS5. Mine has the CORSAIR MP600 PRO LPX inside with big AAA games like the FFVII Remake Intergrade, Last of Us Part II, and most recently, God of War: Ragnarok.
