Software

Just in time for the Sabre RGB Pro, Corsair released iCUE 4, Corsair's powerful yet resource-hungry software suite. Aside from looks, not much seems to have changed, though there are even more processes running in the background now. After installation, I was given the option to launch iCUE, despite the fact that the installer prompted me to restart my PC in order to use iCUE just a moment later, which is rather curious. After restarting my PC, I noticed that Windows pointer speed was suddenly set to 11/11, and "Enhance Pointer Precision" had been enabled, which I haven't seen a software do in quite a while. My confusion continued to grow as I looked at the options screen. As with previous Corsair mice, both lighting and CPI can be configured either in software or hardware mode, with separate entries within iCUE to match. It's a rather curious distinction in regard to the CPI configuration as there is no difference between the two profiles, which begs the question what the point of it is in the first place—aside from the option to set a sniper button value within the software profile despite the fact that the Sabre RGB Pro doesn't have one. And why is a default value indicator displayed for the hardware profile even though it cannot be changed? Finally, why is the lighting brightness slider hidden under device settings instead of lighting settings, where one would expect it? Long story short, I'm somewhat befuddled and not too impressed with mouse functionality in iCUE 4.

As mentioned, all options are available through multiple list entries. All buttons except the left main button can be remapped to mouse, keyboard, media, or macro functions. CPI can be set for up to five stages, ranging from 100 to 18,000 CPI in increments of 1 CPI, and independently for x and y-sensitivity. Additionally, a surface calibration can be performed to lower the lift-off distance beyond the default level. Polling rate adjustment (125/250/500/1000/2000/4000/8000 Hz) is found under device settings, and much like iCUE 3, the device is restarted every time the polling rate is changed, which can get annoying rather quickly. Under device settings, one also finds a setting called "Enable Button Response Optimization"—the "enable" is both grammatically and logically redundant, and best ignored. With it set to off, proper debouncing is performed, increasing click latency but reducing the likelihood of so-called slam clicking and double clicking. By setting it to on, debouncing is no longer performed, which lowers the click latency, but introduces slam clicking and possibly double clicking. Furthermore, angle snapping can be turned on or off. On my system, the software has a RAM footprint of 315 MB on average when running in the foreground, along with a considerable CPU and GPU time cost, neither of which changes when minimized to the system tray. Upon exiting the application, several processes, including headset drivers despite me not owning a Corsair headset, keep running, totaling a RAM footprint of 44 MB on average and taking up CPU time even though iCUE isn't running.

Lighting

The Sabre RGB Pro has two physical and logical lighting zones: scroll wheel and logo at the back. Without iCUE running, five different lighting effects can be set and saved to the on-board memory: Watercolor, Rainbow, Color Pulse, Color Shift, and Static. While running iCUE, a whole slew of lighting effects is available, including shift, blink, gradient, and pulse effects, many of which can be further adjusted in terms of transition speed, direction, and color palette, not to mention the ability to synchronize them with other Corsair devices. Of course, the lighting also can be disabled altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Here's a short demonstration video in which I go through the Watercolor, Rainbow, and Color Pulse lighting effects: