When comparing Steelseries Rival vs Razer Imperator, the Slant community recommends Steelseries Rival for most people. In the question“What is the best gaming mouse?” Steelseries Rival is ranked 9th while Razer Imperator is ranked 96th. The most important reason people chose Steelseries Rival is:
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse has a built in Pixart PAW3310 optical sensor that offers great tracking control.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great tracking
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse has a built in Pixart PAW3310 optical sensor that offers great tracking control.
Pro Works great on Linux, using the libratbagd software
Pro Satisfying clicks
Steelseries boast of new in house built switches used inside of the Rival. Use reports have claimed that the clicks as "satisfying".
Pro Great accompanying software suite
Steelseries uses a software suite called Engine 3 that is low resource and used to customize their gaming mouse options.
Pro Great value for money
At $59 the Rival gaming mouse has a great balance between build quality and value for money.
Pro Great grip and comfortable
Pro Customizable colors for scroll wheel and palm lights
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse offers 16.8 million colors with two zone illumination.
Pro Absolutely the best for a gaming mouse claw grip
When You have relatively large hands.
Pro DPI can be doubled with software
The 5000 DPI of the Steelseries Rival can be doubled to 10000 with Steelseries firmware.
Pro Dual sensors (laser & optical)
The Razer Imperator offers a dual sensor for optimal sensing on any surface.
Pro Adjustable side buttons
Users can adjust the position of mouse buttons 4 and 5 to better fit their thumb placement.
Cons

Con Rubber grips get worn out very quickly
Con Rubber grips get slippery with sweaty hands
When using the mouse for long duration's the sweat from the users hands can make the rubber side grips slippery.
Con Cannot turn of lighting without Steelseries proprietary software
The lighting on the device can not be adjusted without the Steelseries software.
Con Labled DPI is incorrect
Steelseries labels the DPI as 6500 for the Rival when in fact it is 5000.
Con Suffers from double click issue
After a bit of use the mouse might start experiencing a double click issue with its buttons.
