Finish off your perfect PC gaming rig with these excellent Steelseries peripherals: the Rival 700 mouse, Apex M500 keyboard and Siberia 350 headset, which offer premium performance and some slick design work.
Steelseries Rival 700 gaming mouse review
The Steelseries Rival 700 is an excellent and not-ridiculously-expensive gaming mouse that’s perfect for relative noobs as well as seasoned deathmatch veterans.
Those who simply want a precision pointer will not be disappointed. The Rival 700 is stunningly accurate with zero lag, making it ideal for headshot enthusiasts. However, if you’re all about personalisation, then you’ll be glad to hear that everything from the multiple buttons to the funky glowing logo on the plam rest can be customised through Steelseries’ software. You can even set up the tiny LED screen on the left edge to display your stats or other important info, while the mouse can also offer subtle tactile feedback in the shape of tiny rumbles.
Even hours of non-stop run-and-gun action is made comfortable by the Rival 700’s well-considered design, with buttons that are easily accessed and a curvature that fits neatly to your hand. The super-long and durable USB cable rounds off a solid gaming mouse.
Steelseries Apex M500 keyboard review
While many gaming keyboards thrust their main function in life right into your face, offering up ridiculous designs and insane numbers of extra buttons, the Apex M500 is a lot more subtle. This keyboard could happily sit in a smart home office and blend right in with the rest of your gear. That is, until you power your rig on.
At this point, the M500’s backlighting kicks into life and it’s like staring at a grounded UFO. By default this backlighting is blue, but you can adjust this to pretty much any other colour by downloading Steelseries’ intuitive and accessible software. The lighting feature means you can comfortably make out each individual key, even when gaming in the pitch black.
Key travel is suitably deep, so you feel like a bit of a badass when you’re pounding commands to your troops or blasting your way around a map. And while you might ask for more for your money, we’re more than happy using the M500 for our all-night gaming sessions.
Steelseries Siberia 350 gaming headset review
If you’re into co-op and multi-player PC gaming then the brilliant Steelseries Siberia 350 headset is a great option for some in-game smack talking. A flexible, padded skull wrap adjusts automatically to the shape of your head and means you can comfortably wear the Siberia 350 for hours, helped by the super-soft ear cups. Sound quality is fantastic – you’ll hear the growl of a zombie soldier from quite some distance – while the adjustable mic clearly picks up your every command (or curse), and can be tucked away neatly when not needed.
We also love the funky glow of the Siberia 350’s ear cups when the headset’s in use. It’s utterly pointless but it looks cool as hell.
Setup is pleasingly simple; with my test rig, I simply plugged the Siberia 350 into a spare USB port and immediately was ready to game. The USB cable is over a metre long and features a handy volume dial, although sadly there’s no mute button. Still, that’s a tiny complaint and the Siberia 350 is well worth picking up for your gaming marathons.
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