Mad Catz R.A.T 8 Adv Gaming Mouse Review

Conclusion

If, like us, you’ve seen an awful lot of mice in your time then the designs eventually blur together. The very nature of designing something to fit in the human hand means that all designs will be very similar, and particularly with you have a mouse designed for the right handers. The R.A.T design has always eschewed this similarity, looking like very little else around that isn’t an obvious copy of it. It is the type of mouse one would expect to see in a science fiction film.

Of the many variants available in the Mad Catz range the R.A.T 8 Adv is comfortably the highest spec, with a monstrous PixArt PWM3389 sensor putting out 20000 DPI @ 400 IPS with 50G of acceleration. If you’re a fan of twitchy movements this has you covered. It’s not just raw horsepower that places the 8 Adv amongst some rare specimens either, as with 2000 Hz polling rate it would work beautifully with a high refresh rate monitor in those titles where an nth of a second can be the difference between tasting champagne or tasting defeat. The sensor is everything you can hope for from a high end mouse, tracking perfectly whichever end of the sensitivity spectrum you’re sitting, with none of that inertia that can plague some sensors – needing to move a lot before it wakes up and starts moving at all – and no annoying angle snapping, unless of course you want that.

The amount of configurable buttons and setups ensure that even the most demanding user will find a setup that suits their taste too. As well as the regular LMB/RMB and back/forward buttons, the R.A.T 8 Adv has a sniper button, DPI and profile buttons too. What really sets it apart is the thumb wheel that can be configured for anything you wish, but is particularly good when utilised as a lean in FPS games. It’s so intuitive. Of course buttons are not the only element that can be adjusted, as you are supplied with three different palm rests and three different side rests. With such a slick coating on the Mad Catz 8 Adv the inclusion of two textured ones – one palm, one pinkie – is a welcome addition. However, the weight of the mouse is such that’s isn’t one for the light of wrist. With all the weights in place it’s 153g and even without them you’re still north of 100g. Not ridiculous, but no featherweight either.

Special praise has to go to the software. We’re wearied of software packages that weigh in at 300MB or more, and even once they’ve been installed need a ton of extra downloads to work with whatever device you’d plugged in. The Mad Catz software is extremely lightweight and very responsive, but not at all difficult to use or lacking in features. Everything is laid out clearly, does exactly what you expect, and has all the options even the most demanding user could hope to find. The macro function in particular isn’t massively different to many others we’ve seen, but any slight annoyances have been smoothed away. It’s really easy to set up anything from a simple timed key press, through to a whole array of complicated actions.

We suppose the only thing that might cause people to resist adding the Mad Catz R.A.T 8 Adv to their armoury is the very red colouring. It’s certainly an acquired taste, not helped by the gloss finish which is a distinct change from the soft rubber textured coatings we normally see on mice. If you game in the Amazon rainforest or suffer dreadfully from sweatly palms it is worth using the supplied textured options, but otherwise it’s just red and only you can decide how much that bothers you.

With a class-leading sensor, umpteen customisation options from plentiful buttons to the side and palm rest changes sitting alongside robust build quality and glorious software, the Mad Catz R.A.T 8 Adv should be very high on any serious gamer’s list.

  

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