Polling rate and refresh rate: which milliseconds you can feel

Turn every rate into a delay before comparing anything

A 1,000 Hz mouse reports its position once every 1 ms. A 125 Hz mouse reports once every 8 ms. A 144 Hz monitor redraws every 6.9 ms. A machine producing 90 frames a second finishes a frame every 11.1 ms. None of those four numbers can be compared in hertz, and all four can be compared in milliseconds.

The conversion also makes the diminishing returns visible, which hertz deliberately obscure. The gap between 125 Hz and 500 Hz polling is 6 ms. The gap between 500 Hz and 1,000 Hz is 1 ms. The gap between 1,000 Hz and 8,000 Hz is 0.875 ms. The marketing number grew by a factor of 64 across that ladder while the delay fell by 7.875 ms in total, almost all of it in the first step.

The delays stack rather than replacing one another, which is why a very fast mouse on a 60 Hz panel still feels slow. Your position is sampled, the frame is rendered, and then the panel waits for its next redraw. The slowest link sets the character of the whole chain.

Where the specifications for this actually live

Mice and keyboards are USB human interface devices, and the document library the USB Implementers Forum publishes is the primary place those definitions sit. The library lists HID Usage Tables 1.7, dated 2026-01-27, alongside the base specifications: USB 2.0 updated on 2025-06-03, USB 3.2 Revision 1.1 from June 2022, and the USB4 Specification v2.0 from November 2025.

That matters for a practical reason. A peripheral advertising an 8,000 Hz report rate is making a claim about what the host polls it for, and the host, the port and the driver all participate in delivering it. The claim belongs to the system rather than to the mouse, which is why the same mouse can behave differently on two machines.

Monitor-side claims have their own published test regime. The VESA Adaptive-Sync Display compliance test specification runs more than 50 automated display performance tests covering refresh rate, flicker, grey-to-grey response time with limits on overshoot and undershoot, video frame drop and frame rate jitter. Version 1.1 was published on 2023-05-16.

• HID Usage Tables 1.7, dated 2026-01-27, in the USB-IF document library
• USB 2.0 Specification, updated 2025-06-03
• USB 3.2 Revision 1.1, from June 2022
• USB4 Specification v2.0, from November 2025
• VESA Adaptive-Sync Display CTS version 1.1, published 2023-05-16, with more than 50 automated tests

Refresh rate does the same arithmetic on the other end

The panel side converts identically. 60 Hz is a frame every 16.7 ms, 144 Hz is 6.9 ms, 240 Hz is 4.2 ms and 360 Hz is 2.8 ms. The step from 60 Hz to 144 Hz removes 9.8 ms, the step to 240 Hz removes a further 2.7 ms, and the step to 360 Hz removes 1.4 ms more.

Put the two ladders side by side and the ranking of upgrades falls out without any judgement. The two largest single reductions available to a player are 60 Hz to 144 Hz on the panel at 9.8 ms and 125 Hz to 1,000 Hz on the mouse at 7 ms. Everything above those is in the range of 1 to 3 ms per step.

Overshoot is the reason a faster panel can look worse. Response-time acceleration that pushes a pixel past its target before settling produces visible bright or dark trails, which is exactly why the VESA test regime places limits on overshoot and undershoot rather than only measuring grey-to-grey transition time.

What this costs in dollars per millisecond

Converting the two ladders into money is the last step, and it changes which upgrade looks sensible. Using the example prices from the cost-per-year guide on this site, a $350 monitor bought to move from 60 Hz to 144 Hz is about $36 per millisecond removed. An $80 mouse bought to move from 125 Hz to 1,000 Hz is about $11 per millisecond.

Above those two steps the figure climbs steeply. A panel bought purely to move from 240 Hz to 360 Hz is buying 1.4 ms, so at an example $600 that is roughly $429 per millisecond — about 12 times the rate of the first monitor step. The gear is not worse; the remaining milliseconds are simply scarce.

None of this says the high numbers are pointless. It says the order is fixed: fix the slowest link first, and only then pay the premium rate for the small reductions that are left. A player on 60 Hz with an 8,000 Hz mouse has bought the expensive milliseconds and left the cheap ones on the table.

Settings that move more milliseconds than money does

Three changes cost nothing and sit in the same range as a hardware step. Capping the frame rate a few frames below the panel's maximum keeps a variable-refresh panel inside its working range instead of falling back to fixed refresh. Turning off a television-style processing mode removes buffering the panel was adding on purpose.

Lowering a graphics setting that is costing frames does the same arithmetic in reverse: a machine moving from 60 to 90 frames a second drops its frame interval from 16.7 ms to 11.1 ms, a 5.6 ms reduction that is larger than every step above 144 Hz in the table above and costs nothing at all.

Make those three changes before buying anything, then re-measure. The chain is only as fast as its slowest link, and the slowest link is often a setting rather than a component.

Before you buy

• Convert every rate you are comparing to milliseconds by dividing 1,000 by it
• Write down the three intervals in your own chain: mouse report, frame time and panel refresh
• Fix the largest interval first and re-measure before buying anything else
• Cap the frame rate a few frames below the panel maximum so variable refresh stays in range
• Turn off television-style picture processing modes on the panel
• Divide the price of any upgrade by the milliseconds it removes before deciding
• Check whether a panel's variable-refresh claim carries the VESA certified logo

Questions readers ask

Is an 8,000 Hz mouse worth it over a 1,000 Hz one?

It removes 0.875 ms, against the 7 ms that the step from 125 Hz to 1,000 Hz removes. That is the entire difference, and it arrives only if the host, port and driver sustain the rate. If the panel is still at 60 Hz and redrawing every 16.7 ms, the 0.875 ms is invisible underneath it.

Do these delays add up or does the slowest one dominate?

They add. The position is sampled, the frame is rendered, and the panel then waits for its next redraw, so the intervals are sequential. That is why a 1 ms mouse paired with a 16.7 ms panel does not feel like a 1 ms system, and why fixing the largest term first gives the largest change.

How do I know my mouse is really reporting at the rate it claims?

The rate is a property of the whole system rather than the device, because the host polls the device. Mice and keyboards are USB human interface devices defined by the specifications in the USB-IF document library, including HID Usage Tables 1.7 dated 2026-01-27. The same mouse on a different machine can deliver a different effective rate.

Why do some fast panels show trails behind moving objects?

Response-time acceleration can push a pixel past its target value before it settles, which shows as a bright or dark trail. VESA's compliance test specification places limits on overshoot and undershoot alongside grey-to-grey timing for exactly this reason, so a certified panel has been measured for it rather than only for speed.

What is the single largest free improvement available?

Raising frame rate by lowering a graphics setting. Going from 60 to 90 frames a second cuts the frame interval from 16.7 ms to 11.1 ms, a 5.6 ms reduction that beats every monitor step above 144 Hz in this guide and costs nothing.

Sources

1. USB Implementers Forum — document library listing HID Usage Tables 1.7 and the USB 2.0, USB 3.2 and USB4 specifications with their dates — checked 2026-11-03
2. VESA — Adaptive-Sync Display logo programme, number of automated performance tests and certified logo values — checked 2026-11-03
3. VESA — Adaptive-Sync Display 1.1 update, publication date and changes to grey-to-grey testing and overshoot limits — checked 2026-11-03