BOE (Beijing Orient Electronics) showed off a new monitor with the fastest refresh rate, an incredible 600Hz to be exact.
The screen in question is actually a laptop display, a 16″ LCD on the Chinese website Information Technology Home (opens in a new tab) brought to our attention (via Tom’s Hardware (opens in a new tab)).
The panel was showcased at the World Display Industry Congress in China, but other than size and refresh rate, no other specifications of the screen were provided, although it was shown at the event.
BOE showed off the display on a laptop with an AMD Ryzen CPU and an Nvidia GPU – presumably, or at least the logos are on the laptop’s chassis, so it would be weird if the sticker component wasn’t inside the laptop.
Note that the 600Hz screen still appears to be in the early stages of development, as the display is apparently attached to the base of the laptop using adhesive tape when running.
Analysis: This is really a case of “stop that, it’s stupid”
Does the world really need 600Hz panels? Is there any point in this seemingly relentless effort to increase refresh rates to ever greater levels? Earlier this year, BOE hyped up a 500Hz gaming monitor, and by the end of the year, 600Hz screens had surpassed that effort, and by a wide margin.
Is this all getting silly? Well, we think that’s largely the case, but having said that, there’s a target audience for such ultra-high refresh rate panels, although it’s debatable exactly what such a display will bring to the table.
The target audience will be professional gamers, playing games like CS:GO and can achieve very, very high framerates (since they don’t demand much from the game).
It’s worth noting that we can assume the 600Hz screen is 1080p resolution, since the need to push high frame rates means it won’t be higher resolution. In that case 600 fps will never be achieved – remember this is also a laptop and hitting those heights is a trickier task in terms of available GPU grunt. That’s another point – we’re not sure why it was created as a laptop panel, rather than a standalone display like BOE’s aforementioned 500Hz.
As Tom’s Hardware rightly pointed out, one advantage of increasing the panel’s refresh rate so high is that you get better frame times – smoother and more consistent frame delivery – but that pays off as you go up Will greatly reduce the dazzling refresh rate. For example, 360Hz gives a frame time of 2.7ms, while 600Hz drops it to 1.66ms. Now, a basic 60Hz panel is 16.66ms, which is fine for casual gaming, so the drop from here to 360Hz and 2.7ms is quite a bit (at least for competitive gamers). But taking it further down to 1.66 milliseconds is trivial, to say the least.
Would a person really appreciate such a small difference? Can the human eye even detect the benefits of a 600Hz (or even 500Hz or lower) panel? In fact, the answer for the vast majority of people is probably no.But for the very small number of top professional gamers who might benefit from an ultra high refresh rate panel as they might benefit from a smoother gaming experience that might only be noticeable in terms of very subtle differences Feel Game. But even the slightest potential edge is something high-earning gaming professionals are likely to find value in chasing.
But, for those of us who are not gamers first, these screens designed to hit high refresh rates mean nothing. During the course of 2022, all of this is pushed to the extreme, and to us gaming-world mortals, it will inevitably look silly. Actually, 144Hz or 240Hz are absolutely fine if you want to push the boat out.
Finally, it remains to be seen to what extent BOE will flex its marketing muscle. Will we actually see such 600Hz panels in gaming laptops? Maybe, but then again, we haven’t heard anything from the company about a 500Hz display since it was shown earlier this year.
AU Optronics and LG Display are also speculated to be launching 480Hz monitors in 2023, so whatever your opinion on ultra-fast refresh rates, we’ll probably see some of these models appear sometime next year.
