ASUS ROG Chakram X Review – The Ultimate Gaming Mouse?

How Much Does it Cost?

There’s no easy way of saying this, so I’ll just get right to it… The ASUS RoG Chakram X Gaming Mouse is £175 on Amazon, there I did it, like pulling off a fingernail, totally painless… *cough*. Thankfully, some retailers have a little more forgiveness in their prices, as OCUK have it on sale right now for £119.99 down from £149.99, which is still a fist full of cash, but certainly much more sensible than what ASUS is asking for on Amazon. That being said, between £120-150 I do not think this mouse is overpriced. It’s offering a feature set that’s pretty much in a league of its own. Its price is similar to the Razer Viper V2 Pro and SteelSeries Aerox 5 Wireless, which are both exceptional mice in their own regards, but also very different to the Chakram X to offer a real comparison, but in terms of raw hardware, ASUS has everyone beaten.

Overview

ASUS has a truly next-level mouse here, and that’s hardly surprising to me. Their mice aren’t exactly mainstream, they don’t make too many of them each year, and they cost a lot of money. However, just like the other ASUS mice I’ve reviewed over the years, they’re certainly some of the best in the business. For your typical at-home gamer, they offer pretty much everything you could ask for in terms of features. However, while the sensor, polling rate and other features have a lot of appeal for competitive gaming, the Chakram X may be a little overly-complicated for actual eSports, but that’s subjective, of course.

What does surprise me about this mouse is how sleek is all it. There are a lot of cool features here, such as the magnetically mounted top panels, those removable switches, the customisable RGB puck, etc. Yet it all looks beautiful, slim and user-friendly, rather than utilitarian. You’d think opening the mouse up, you’d see some more electronics or a wire here and there, but nope, it’s all very presentable.

Plus, having a true analogue stick on your mouse is strange, but surprisingly practical. I set mine to help me with a few cheeky shortcuts in Elder Scrolls Online and even tinkered with using it as a camera controller too. It just works as you would expect really. However, I found more use in setting it to digital mode and having four unique buttons there, making it easy to set macros and other commands to it. Having a copy and paste function by flicking it up or down respectively is nice, for example.

Using it in wireless mode is sublime, and the issues of wireless being second best for speed are no longer relevant. However, if you absolutely do need the wire, the ultralight cable is really nice, it charges the mouse quickly, and it unlocks that 8000 Hz mode, should you ever need it (I certainly don’t). However, that’s what makes this mouse so worthy of its big price tag. You can change the wireless mode, use it wired, charge with cable or Qi, change the RGB, swap the switches, change the stick and more. This isn’t just any mouse, but it’s really any kind of high-end gaming mouse you want it to be.

Is the ASUS RoG Chakram X worth the investment? Absolutely, you’ll certainly not regret it. Is it for everyone though? Absolutely not. In many regards, it’s complete overkill for most people. Yes, it’s very expensive, but you get what you pay for. Overall, the ASUS ROG Chakram X is as good as a mouse can get right now and may be the most advanced mouse on the market today, and using it feels pretty special.