The Most Used Pro Gaming Gear in 2024 So Far

It’s summer, and that means that various pro gaming scenes are having their break or are just coming out of their break. We’re over the halfway point of the year as well, so it’s a perfect time to check out what’s hot and what’s not. In this article, we’ll go over the most used pro gaming gear in 2024. We’ll go a little deeper on current trends and explore what makes certain products popular so that you are completely up to date with the pro meta.

For this article, we use data from all of our analyzed games.

Mice


1640 players, using 158 different types of mice.

The Logitech G Pro X Superlight has been the king of gaming mice for a very, very long time now. Starting with the Logitech G Pro Wireless, Logitech’s flagship gaming mouse has ruled the charts for years. Recently, however, some cracks in the armor have started to appear. Compared to January of 2024, the Superlight has lost almost 10% of its market share, whereas its successor (the Superlight 2) gained ‘just’ 6%. That’s a 4% loss for Logitech’s flagship line.

The cause for this could be the release of the Razer Viper V3 Pro. The newest Viper (which has a redesigned shape compared to its predecessor) can be seen as a direct competitor to the Superlight, and it’s a big hit in professional gaming circles. It’s technologically more advanced than the Superlight and has a similar shape, so it’s a good option for players who are always chasing the best of the best when it comes to specs.

Further down the list, we see the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 -which has some trouble in gathering as many followers as its predecessor did- and the ol’ reliable ergo duo in the form of the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro and the ZOWIE EC2-CW.

When it comes to brands, Logitech still reigns supreme. Their mouse market share on our website has fallen by ~4% when compared to the start of the year but their products are still being used by well over a third of professional players. Razer already held the second spot at the start of the year, but their 7% rise compared to January should be cause for celebration with team green. In third place, ZOWIE remains stable.

With Logitech’s market share falling for the first time in years, it’ll be interesting to see in which way the mouse market develops over the next months and years.

Keyboards


1553 players, using 158 different types of keyboards.

Keyboards have been going through a renaissance. Ever since Wooting dropped their 60 HE keyboard, the standards for gaming keyboards have shifted.

Just a couple of years ago, a regular mechanical keyboard meant for office/productivity usage had no real benefits over a gaming keyboard since they all used the same underlying tech. As long as there were no latency issues, you were fine. Deciding on which board you wanted mostly came down to preferences regarding materials, aesthetics, and so on.

These days, gaming keyboards with analog switches and a host of underlying tech provide massive benefits over regular mechanical keyboards, leading to a big rise in the usage of those keyboards.

The Wooting 60 HE (the first board to truly realize the potential of analog switches) had been the most popular keyboard in the pro scene for some time now, but it has since been surpassed by the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL. That’s thanks to its stellar implementation of optical switches and great gaming performances. Both brands have been taking it even further in recent times, with features like Snap Tap and Wooting’s SOCD even sparking debates about unfair advantages ingame.

Even without Snap Tap and SOCD, boards like the Wooting 60 HE and the Huntsman V3 Pro offer a substantial advantage over regular boards. If you’re a competitive gamer and you’re in the market for a new keyboard, you have to go for one with optical switches. Four out of five keyboards on the most used list have optical switches, and their numbers are still on the rise. That should tell you something.

When we take a look at the brands, the trend is also obvious. Logitech -the only brand in the top 3 that doesn’t offer a keyboard with analog switches right now- lost the lead as they went down by 4% compared to the start of the year. Razer is up 6% thanks to the growing popularity of the Huntsman line and Wooting also shows an impressive growth of 4%.

Getting third place as a brand as well as the most used keyboard overall is an extremely impressive feat for a small and relatively new company such as Wooting, and we’re curious to see what the future holds for the Dutch brand. Now that other companies have started adapting their own products as a consequence of Wooting’s dominance, the competition is undoubtedly getting fiercer. But as we can see by Wooting’s rapid response to Razer’s Snap Tap, the company very much has their eyes on the ball.

In summary: there’s a very clear trend going on right now. The future of gaming keyboards is optical.

Monitors


1534 players, using 83 different types of monitors.

The world of monitors hasn’t seen a ton of movement throughout the year. ZOWIE’s TN gaming monitors are still considered to be the golden standard in the pro scene, and there isn’t much evidence to suggest that this will change in the near future.

Monitors with a 1920×1080 resolution and a high refresh rate are still by far the most used in competitive gaming. With popular games such as Counter-Strike becoming more difficult to run in recent times, it’s logical that pros don’t see a reason to stray away from their 1080p panels. Given the fact that ZOWIE has those down to a T (they are consistently among the best options when it comes to gaming performances and motion clarity) it’s also no surprise that we aren’t seeing a ton of movement in this space. After all, high framerates are to be prioritized over anything else.

The good news for regular consumers is that 240Hz monitors are getting more and more affordable. For most gamers who aren’t playing at or near a pro level, a 240Hz monitor can be considered to be a golden compromise between price and performance. After all, getting higher framerates in any competitive game is mostly reserved for top tier systems. Additionally, there are also diminishing returns with framerates; the jump from 60Hz to 144Hz is far more impactful than the jump from 240Hz to 360Hz.

If you’re on the lookout for a top competitive gaming monitor, it can pay off to wait for a sale on an older 240Hz model.

ZOWIE keeps a firm grip on the monitor market in the professional space. Compared to the beginning of the year, their market share has gone up by an additional percentage point. The other two brands in the top 3 remained relatively stable.

Mousepads


1558 players, using 157 different types of mousepads.

The mousepad market has always been tight, but right now it’s just about the closest it’s ever been at the top. The top 5 pads all have 9% (rounded) of the market and can thus change positions multiple times a week.

Right now, the SteelSeries QcK Heavy reigns supreme. That’s perhaps a bit of a surprise, since we’ve seen a lot of premium mousepads being released in the past year or so, and the QcK Heavy definitely isn’t a part of that premium pad revolution. It is an old pad that’s affordable and widely available, and perhaps that’s part of its allure.

No matter how well you treat your mousepad, it will start to degrade after a while. And if you’re a pro gamer and you’re always on the road, you don’t want to be waiting on that ultra exclusive, difficult to procure mousepad if you’re starting to notice that the glide is changing. With something like the QcK Heavy, you know that you can get one pretty much wherever you are in the world.

This is a theory that gets a bit more credible if we look at Artisan. This niche brand’s products used to be very difficult to get your hands on, and now that they’ve started to up their production capacity and are more commonly available, the Artisan pads are on the rise in the professional scene.

In recent years, pro gamers have started paying more attention to their mousepads. When this website first started, a niche brand like Artisan was nowhere near the top 5. Now, they’re the second most used mousepad brand in the pro scene after an impressive 3% rise since January. Outside of the brands, we see Lethal Gaming Gear (another niche brand) climb by 1%.

ZOWIE still holds the crown due to their iconic G-SR and G-SR-SE lines that they’re continuously improving on, but it’s nice to see that pros have also started exploring other options. A ton of really good mousepads have been released in the past year or so, and it’ll be interesting to see if those get picked up in larger numbers. If you’re interested in gaming mousepads, feel free to browse our list with gaming mousepads specs and glide properties.

Headsets


1491 players, using 115 different types of headsets.

If you follow the gaming headset space a bit, you’ll know what’s on top. The HyperX Cloud II has been the most used gaming headset for years and years, and even though its usage numbers have declined by 2% since the start of the year, the Cloud II still holds a commanding lead.

Released in a time where a lot of gaming headsets were extremely underwhelming, the Cloud II made a name for itself as a no-nonsense gaming headset with great build quality, good audio, and a good mic. In today’s headset market, the Cloud II isn’t as fantastic as it was back when it was released, but it still holds its reputation for being the go-to gaming headset for competitive players.

Elsewhere in the list, we see an extremely impressive climber in the form of the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro. It claims the second spot after gaining a staggering 9% since January, thus surpassing the G Pro X that held the second spot for a very long time.

What’s interesting is that wireless headsets seem to be more and more common. Three out of five products in the current top 5 are wireless, which might indicate that wireless headset technology has finally matured enough to be considered viable for competitive gaming.

Due to the domination of the Cloud line, HyperX is the absolute champion of the headset space. Logitech comes second but did have to give up 1 percentage point compared to January 2024. With Razer gaining 6%, we might see the three-headed snake in second place by the time winter rolls around.

Conclusion


The most obvious conclusion we can draw from our data is that optical keyboard are on the rise. And also -looking at their gameplay benefits- that they’re here to stay.

Mousepads are also going through an interesting period where the more niche and enthusiast-oriented brands are getting more attention, so we’re curious to see if the mainstream brands are going to hop on that trend and bring out their own premium offerings.

In the mouse space, we see what could potentially be the first cracks in the Logitech Superlight’s armor, but it’s still too early to speak of its demise if you ask us. It does have to be said that Razer’s Viper V3 Pro is one of the strongest contenders we’ve seen in quite a while though, and its numbers are still on the rise.

Check back at the end of the year to see how things have changed in the last 5 months of 2024!

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