Razer Tartarus V2 Pro Brings Analog Optical Switches and 8000 Hz to the Keypad

Ryan Mitchell18/09/20263 min readPress release

Razer just gave its keypad line the flagship treatment. The Tartarus V2 Pro landed today, an analog optical gaming keypad with 31 programmable controls, adjustable switches and a wrist rest that actually moves with your hand. It costs $199.99 and it is out now.

This is the first time Razer has put its top-end switch tech and full 8000 Hz polling into a dedicated keypad, so it is aimed squarely at MMO and FPS players who want more inputs under their left hand without giving up comfort.

The switches do the heavy lifting

At the centre is the Razer Analog Optical Switch Gen-2, the same flagship switch Razer uses in its best keyboards, now built into the Tartarus. It gives you a fully adjustable actuation range from 0.1mm to 4.0mm, so you can set exactly how far a key travels before it registers. Rapid Trigger sensitivity goes down to 0.1mm for fast repeated taps, which is the kind of thing that matters when you are strafing or spamming an ability rotation.

Each switch is individually lubricated, seated in a dense foam layer and rated for 100 million keystrokes. Razer says it tuned the whole thing for a clean acoustic, which is a nice touch on a device you are going to be mashing for hours.

31 controls and a proper thumbstick

The headline number is 31 programmable controls, enough to map an entire ability bar, a full macro set or a genre-specific loadout onto one pad. Anchoring them is a full-sized anti-drift TMR thumbstick pulled from Razer’s controllers, with three dedicated buttons around it. That thumbstick is the interesting part, since it lets you handle radial menus and analog movement from the keypad instead of reaching for a mouse or controller.

You can store up to 24 keymaps across 3 onboard profiles, so different games or characters can each get their own layout without opening software mid-session.

A wrist rest that adjusts to you

Most keypads bolt on a fixed wrist rest and call it a day. The Tartarus V2 Pro’s rest slides out and rotates left and right, so you set the angle your hand actually wants rather than forcing your wrist to match the hardware. On a device built for marathon sessions, that is the sort of ergonomic detail that pays off after the third hour, not the third minute.

Speed and software

The pad runs up to 8000 Hz HyperPolling, eight times the old industry standard, and it plugs into Razer’s Advanced Input Control suite with Snap Tap, Snap Flex and Dynamic Keystroke. Those features let a single key do more depending on how you press it, which is where a lot of the competitive edge lives now that so many shooters have banned the more aggressive input tricks on keyboards.

Price and availability

The Razer Tartarus V2 Pro is out now at £199.99 / $199.99 / €219.99, available from Razer.com, RazerStores and select retailers.

That is a real chunk of money for a keypad, and it puts the Tartarus V2 Pro at the premium end of an already niche category. If you live in MMOs or you want analog control mapped to your left hand, though, this is Razer throwing everything it has at the format, and there is not much else on the market aiming this high.