9 Gaming Accessories Proven To Actually Make A Difference

Although you'll find countless products online marketed towards gamers, you might be surprised to learn how much they'll actually impact your gaming experience. Gaming chairs can cost more than your rent while providing few benefits over office chairs, gaming speakers can be outclassed by less fancy counterparts, and some brands that make pre-built gaming PCs end up with lower performance due to insufficient cooling or proprietary parts. In fact, the RGB aesthetic commonly associated with gaming can often make games run worse due to the need for additional resource-intensive software to work properly.

There are gaming products out there that actually can make a positive difference, and their sleek designs and RGB functionality are secondary to their primary function. Rather than focusing on marketing, you should take a look at a few specific products alongside the features they offer when casting about for ways to improve your gaming experience. In some cases, a product being labeled for gamers might end up with some surprising benefits. In a best-case scenario, you might not even be able to imagine playing something new without that additional piece of gaming tech.

The most capable gaming mice are likely to have some form of RGB, as well as dots per inch (DPI) settings that can adjust sensitivity to extreme levels. Although these additions alone don't offer much of an advantage in games, a mouse with a large number of additional buttons can end up providing surprising value. The Redragon M913 is a prime example of a mouse with as many buttons as you'll need for just about any game, allowing you to program them as specific keypresses or macros. This basically lets you take any action without needing to fumble around your keyboard to press the right combination of inputs, which can make a big difference when quick reaction times are necessary.

Other features of gaming mice can help out a lot, as well. Our Logitech G305 review took note of its extremely capable sensor, which reduced input lag compared to competing wireless alternatives. Other mice also make an effort to be lightweight, offering more freedom of movement without needing to exert the same effort as with cheaper options. A lighter weight usually comes with a tradeoff of fewer available buttons, though, so the best gaming mouse for you may end up depending on what types of games you play more often.

The biggest appeal of gaming keyboards might seem like their mechanical switches, but there are already plenty of those without any connection to gaming in the first place. As with mice, additional features can be key for keyboards, if you'll pardon the pun. The Corsair K100, for example, includes dedicated macro keys and multiple profiles that allow users to switch between different settings at will. Access to many different keys or combinations at once can be a great help when faced with difficult encounters or quests, especially in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).

Our rankings of major gaming keyboard brands put Wooting at the top spot, and for good reason. This brand comes with special software that can customize every aspect of these peripherals, and the keyboards themselves come with specialized optical switches. These aren't commonly found in non-gaming products, and they allow you to simulate analog movement in games that support it. In a way, these optical keyboards can end up becoming dedicated controllers for certain titles.

Not many gaming monitors are specifically labeled as such, but there are usually some key differences between those that are more suited to professional tasks as opposed to gaming. The Samsung Odyssey G55C has an exceptionally high refresh rate of 165 Hz, which allows for smoother motion on screen. This is primarily helpful for gaming above all other tasks, especially with first-person shooters where those refresh rates will allow you to act with greater precision. Optimizing your gaming monitor for the best frame rate can make a world of difference in countless games, and getting the highest frame rate possible is practically required for competitive play.

However, some gaming monitors might not be the best fit for every title. The Odyssey G55C uses a vertical alignment (VA) panel, which can lead to objects in motion smearing on screen. This can disrupt gameplay pretty heavily in certain cases, possibly making gamers mistake afterimages for enemies. Ultrawide monitors can also let you see more on screen in games, but only if those games support your resolution. Ultrawide screens that don't match your resolution can stretch your view and make specific titles virtually unplayable.

It should come as no surprise that graphics cards are important for gaming. But some graphics processing units (GPU), such as MSI's Gaming Trio lineup, add a little (or a lot) more to the experience. The reason these cards matter for gaming isn't in the brand name or because they have additional RGB, but in their overclocking capabilities. Extra cooling and additional settings allow these cards to hit greater speeds when playing graphically intense games, allowing them to run more smoothly than their lesser counterparts.

If you know how to overclock your gaming PC, motherboards can also be essential to look at. The Republic of Gamers (ROG) motherboards from Asus specifically include high-end cooling to support overclocking, helping you to squeeze every bit of performance from your rig. The bonus of a good motherboard is that the high-end ones, despite being labelled for gamers, will improve performance for pretty much any use — from productivity to gaming to simply booting up your computer. They are technically making a positive difference, and their gaming capabilities aren't the only benefits they offer.

The benefits of gaming laptops over regular laptops probably seem obvious at first. They tend to be loaded with high-powered hardware to support more intensive titles. But for something like the Asus TUF Gaming A15 laptop, the benefit stems from the design of the laptop itself in terms of one of the most critical aspects of performance enhancement — cooling. Laptops tend to run hot due to their compact size and limited ventilation options, which can limit how fast they can run when faced with heavier workloads. Gaming laptops take this into account more than with other laptops, sometimes sacrificing portability and weight for more powerful fans.

Many gaming laptops will also have built-in features with settings that attempt to increase gaming performance through various hardware configurations. They can also come with pretty capable displays that are capable of reaching higher refresh rates to further entice the average gamer. Some of them will even include extra services such as Microsoft's Game Pass, granting access to a great library of titles to try out on your new device. Considering how difficult it is to build or even upgrade your own laptop, getting one with a gaming label may be more worthwhile than it would be for pre-built PCs.

Like laptops, phones tend to be very difficult to customize in terms of hardware. However, the differences between a gaming phone and a non-gaming, high-end alternative are pretty negligible — at least when it comes to power. Many of the most powerful Android devices share similar processors, and there aren't any iOS offerings that are specifically for gamers more than typical non-gaming consumers. If all you care about is how well your preferred games will run, then a dedicated gaming phone isn't the most necessary buy in the world.

Where these devices matter is with the trade-offs they make. While a Redmagic 10 Pro gaming phone might not have the same high-end camera as a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, it manages to offer more storage for games and a higher refresh rate. It also has a greater touch sampling rate, which means it registers user inputs faster and more often than its Samsung rival. There are far better reasons to get a phone than just how well it plays certain games, but if that's your primary concern, a dedicated gaming phone is far from the worst purchase you could make.

Depending on who you ask, there's not really a need for gaming-specific headsets. In many cases, simply pairing a good microphone with high-end headphones will provide a better experience than relying on cheap surround sound headsets for avid gamers. But if you're willing to go beyond the low end, headsets like the Logitech G PRO X 2 can make a big difference. This is because of latency, as expensive gaming headsets like this one will do whatever they can to have whatever's on screen match up with what you hear.

Even some ultra-expensive audiophile headphones have faced issues with latency in recent years, and when playing games, that lack of reaction time can end up being a massive problem. Gaming headsets might get outclassed in terms of overall quality, but that doesn't matter much for actual gameplay as long as you can hear what's around you, especially at the proper time. These headsets also tend to have better connection options than other audiophile types, often offering a USB plug alongside the standard 3.5 mm cable. If your computer lacks a place for a standard headphone jack, a gaming headset will almost certainly have another way to get connected.

It should come as no surprise that controllers would make a difference in gaming. While they're almost never required for standard play, some games are built specifically with controllers in mind, leading to limited movement options or questionable inputs when playing with a keyboard and mouse. For PC players, a standard Xbox controller is usually enough to get around these issues. You can also use controllers as mice for day-to-day tasks, but unlike other products on this list, the experience you'll have with them outside of games won't be a very good one.

Handhelds are an interesting case, as they're designed for gaming while not being much more than a different type of laptop. However, these devices have controllers directly built into them, allowing you to more easily enjoy games that recommend one. Our Steam Deck OLED review notes how these devices have great cooling for stable performance, easily outdoing the average laptop in that regard. Many newly released titles are also being optimized for handhelds like the Steam Deck.

If there's one gaming product that looks like it doesn't belong on this list at all, it's a mouse pad. In the simplest terms, these are just simple mats that allow your mouse to be detected by your computer more easily. No amount of pretty lighting or recognizable brand names will change that, so it might be hard to understand why anyone would spend more than a few dollars on one of these. The answer lies in the actual material these pads are made from, which can affect your gameplay just as much as the mouse itself.

Many gaming mouse pads, such as the Razer Gigantus, are made from specialized material meant to reduce the friction of your mouse. This allows for fine-tuned control in games that rely on it, leading to precision that couldn't be achieved by simply getting more lightweight peripherals. Glass pads also exist, often priced at over 10 times the cost of their competitors. Surprisingly enough, a great mouse pad can become one of the most beneficial gaming products you'll ever buy.