5 hours ago
4
Wireless PC gaming headsets are a necessity for me. Wired gaming headsets are just too restrictive, tethering you to your desk and limiting your movements during intense gaming sessions. However, there's one big trade-off with wireless gaming headsets that I've always struggled with: battery life. Most gaming headsets simply don't last very long and require charging every day.
Lovingly stolen from my wife, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite headset breaks that standard with essentially infinite battery life. At $600, they are the most expensive pair of headphones I've ever used, but after months of use, I don't regret the switch.
Pros:
- Effective active noise cancellation
- Two hot-swappable batteries, so I never run out of juice
- Useful hub included for EQ, volume control and battery charging
- Comfortable fit and earcups for hours of use
- Works across PC, PS5, Xbox and mobile
Cons:
- SteelSeries software can be overwhelming
- Spatial audio is gimmicky
- Expensive at $600
My battery anxiety is gone
Battery anxiety is real with wireless gaming headphones. If they don't come with a docking station (most affordable and midrange models don't), then you need to actively remember to charge them; otherwise, you get an unpleasant surprise when you boot up a game only to find your headset dead.
That's not a problem with the Nova Elite. It comes with a removable, replaceable battery in the earcup, with a second battery available that can be kept continuously charging in the included GameHub (which is basically a digital audio converter that doubles as a battery charging station). When the headset's battery runs down, it's simply a matter of popping off the earcup's magnetic cover, ejecting the fully charged battery from the hub and swapping the fresh pack in. Seamless and easy, which is exactly what I'm looking for in gaming headphones.
The Nova Elite battery is removable and replaceable after you take off the earcup cover.
Ajay Kumar/CNETOn paper, each battery lasts about 30 hours, giving you around a total of 60 hours of constant usage -- though in practice, it's essentially infinite as long as you charge the spare battery.
If, for some reason, you don't have access to the base station, you can also use USB-C fast charging by popping off the other earcup's cover, letting you plug in directly. I found that SteelSeries' quick-charge feature -- 15 minutes of charging for up to four hours of use -- lives up to its claim.
Popping out the Nova Elite battery is easy. All you have to do next is remove the charged one from the docking station and pop it in.
Ajay Kumar/CNETWith the other gaming headsets I've used, like the Dell Alienware Pro Wireless, I usually had to charge them every other day. The battery life varied significantly based on my usage. The HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless fared much better. They're rated for 300 hours of use, and I don't know if I ever actually hit that, but I usually charged them once a month. However, with the HyperX, I found that sometimes auto off didn't work, and the battery would unexpectedly drain.
Also worth considering is that the batteries on both the Alienware and HyperX headsets are built-in, meaning they will degrade over time; you won't get as much battery life as when they were new. I expect the Nova Elite to last a lot longer because if the batteries stop fully charging, I can simply buy new ones.
Excellent audio capabilities and packed with features
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite features active noise cancellation, and it does a great job counteracting most distracting background noise, including the rumble of a dryer we keep in my office, not to mention the sound of air purifiers, fans and my three cats running around.
The Alienware Pro Wireless have slightly better noise cancellation, at least for voices, but it's not enough to move the needle one way or another. Also, you'll likely get better noise-canceling tech on Bluetooth headphones like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, but for all my gaming needs, the Nova Elite is more than enough to let me hear audio and voice chat.
The Nova Elite has potent noise cancellation and a built in microphone that slides out for voice chats.
Ajay Kumar/CNET
SteelSeries says the Nova Elite are the world's first gaming headphones with high-resolution audio, featuring 96kHz/24-bit audio processing and support for low-latency codecs. With the caveat that I'm not a hard-core audiophile, the sound quality is impressive.
To give you some context, I briefly dabbled in some of the better wired headphones, like the AKG K7XX and Sennheiser HD650, before deciding it was too expensive a hobby. But for what it's worth, the Nova Elite sound fantastic with Spotify's new lossless audio setting.
I'm someone who favors bass-heavy music, so that's what my EQ settings reflect. The headphones sound glorious, deep and thunderous with my usual set of metal favorites (Sabaton, Hammerfall, Stormwarrior, Iron Maiden and Powerwolf). I also play a lot of RPGs, strategy games and a couple of co-op games with my wife. The audio across different game genres is excellent.
Since I like playing games and listening to music at high volume, it's also great to use over-the-ear headphones to help protect my hearing. My colleague Anna Gragert recently wrote about her hearing loss and the benefits of using over-the-ear headsets like this one.
The headsets have a comfortable fit, and the one I have comes in a Sage Green color.
Ajay Kumar/CNETSomething to note is that, while the Nova Elite are incredibly comfortably for me with its plush earcups and a comfortable clamping force on the headband, not all headphones are made equal and will not work well for everybody. My colleague, Tyler Lacoma, has several recommendations for tweaking your headphones for all-day comfort.
The GameHub, which also serves as a volume control and battery charger, offers a nice central spot to view your audio resolution, L/R balance, volume, battery life and which USB-C input is in use. It has three USB-C ports total, with support for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, 2.4GHz wireless connectivity and Bluetooth. It's a robust set of connectivity options and spares you from having to buy different headphones for different platforms.
Software is highly customizable, but has some complications
If there's any downside, it's the SteelSeries software, which needs to run in the background most of the time for features to work, such as custom EQ settings for games or music. However, the software offers preset profiles for a wide variety of games that you can pick from, though most of the time I stick with my preferred Deep Bass setting.
I don't find SteelSeries' software particularly intuitive, with too many panels and too few settings and toggles. It's a nice set of customization options if you're really into tweaking EQ settings, but 9 out of 10 times, a simple bass boost option works great for me.
The Nova Elite comes with a DAC/base station that gives you access to volume controls and connected devices and also serves as the battery charging dock.
Ajay Kumar/CNETI'll also add that I pretty much never use Sonar, the spatial audio that's meant to simulate a home theater experience. It can also be used in games to hear things like footsteps behind you or to help pinpoint an enemy's location.
Since I don't play a lot of competitive shooters where this would be handy, and I dislike feeling like I'm only hearing sound from one earcup, I find it more distracting than anything else. Enabling it also tends to lower the overall audio quality and clarity.
The most expensive gaming headset I've ever used, but totally worth it
At $600, the Nova Elite isn't cheap, but the features help make up for it.
Ajay Kumar/CNETThe SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is undoubtedly expensive at $600, but it has a lot that makes it worth it for me, including the high-quality audio, strong ANC, swappable batteries and platform cross-compatibility.
However, SteelSeries does offer a less expensive option with the $380 Arctics Nova Pro Wireless. These headphones also come with the GameHub and two sets of swappable batteries, but they have a more limited set of platform connectivity options and slightly lower build quality. You still get most of the other key features, including ANC, though.
You can also find other, more affordable options on our list of the best PC gaming headsets. I have nothing bad to say about the Cloud Alpha Wireless -- CNET named it the longest battery life on a single charge. Still, if price is no object, I'm recommending the Nova Elite every time.
