I made this Handle and its 4,157 tri’s. Since you need two of them its 8,314. If for say a server only lets like 50 people in per map that would be 415,700 tris, just for those two handles.
Is the tri count to high? I’ve heard people say that below 10k maximum is good, and try to aim for 5k and below
Lower tris equals better performance.
Do they need to be this detailed? If they are the size of a players hand in game and are mostly covered by the hand then you could probably get away with way less tris and still have it look good.
The other option would be to have ‘display’ versions with a high tri count, and simpler versions for the actual gameplay.
Many factors count as to what’s a good model (performance wise.) Like:
How big is the model? A smaller, denser model will be more resource hogging for just super tiny details that the player would almost never see.
How frequently is the model used? If it’s used everywhere for example grass, then it’s best having it as low as you can possibly get.
How detailed should it be? If it’s highly detailed then you can use a bit of a weird trick which is to not connect faces.
I have these 2 HIGHLY Identical ladders, there is basically NO difference between them.
One has 680 triangles.
While one has only 96 triangles.
The difference is how the topology is done.
The high topology ladder would have a much more cleaner look while the one with the lower topology won’t. (Only when sub div modifier is applied.)
Hope this helped.
For your model, assuming it’s going to be tiny, then the model is too detailed and you need to bring the tris count down asap.
erm akshtually 
the shading on both of them are not completely identical
get your facts straight buddy. 
you kind of answered it yourself 
those handles probably shouldn’t go above 500 tris considering how tiny details will be lost anyways (small).
rule of thumb: if you turn on wireframe and can still clearly see your model, your tri count is too high.
