Why Gamers Probably Don’t Need a 360Hz Monitor
Nvidia and Asus announced at CES this year that they have created an eSports computer monitor capable of running at 360Hz in 1080p resolution. You probably won’t need it, even if you get better and better at CS: GO and feel like this is the year that you can finally improve your game and be successful.
At the moment, 240Hz is a high bar for a “professional grade” gaming monitor, so a monitor that can deliver 360Hz with G-Sync – for example, a display that allows your graphics card to play up to 360fps without any or graphics problems – impressive. While we automatically lean towards the specs whenever the numbers make such a big jump, that’s not very impressive news for casual and semi-serious gamers (especially when you consider that the monitor is rumored to cost over $ 1,000).
In addition to display size and resolution, PC gamers are very concerned about the monitor’s refresh rate or the maximum number of times it can create and recreate an image on the screen every second. While the actual frame rate you get at any given time depends on your PC and the game you’re playing, there is a limit to the display on how fast it can draw the screen .
Most people don’t play at 360 frames per second.
This brings us to the first of two reasons why a jump from 240Hz to 360Hz doesn’t matter. Most games and most PCs can’t hit 360 frames per second, period. In most AAA games, PC players looking for maximum performance often tweak their graphics settings to achieve the best visual fidelity possible while keeping the game smooth. Often times, depending on how much you care about your frame rate, you get somewhere around 60fps on a PC (or less).
Case in point: I recently had the opportunity to use a very powerful gaming computer and was happy to play games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Control at their highest visual settings, running at around 90 frames per second. This computer costs over $ 5,000, so most of us just won’t see this kind of loyalty for a long time.
To be fair, esports changes the equation a bit. A number of older games still popular in the sports community, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Starcraft , do not require a lot of graphics power, so incredibly high frame rates can be achieved. Other games, such as DOTA or League of Legends, are less graphics-intensive. In addition, the most competitive players would rather sacrifice visual fidelity in order to see more frames faster, which may give them a slight edge over their opponents – reaching 360 frames per second is possible.
The jump from 240Hz to 360Hz isn’t as big as you might think
I’m not at CES, so I can’t speak for myself, but according to reports from several outlets that have used the ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz, the difference between 240Hz and 360Hz playback is negligible at best.
Jessica Conditt of Engadget noticed that she was able to read animations faster in Counter-Strike, which resulted in better response times. However, she also said that the changes were minor and that only professional players are likely to notice the difference.
So that’s it: if you’re already a professional gamer and / or have the money to buy the very best hardware possible without worry, a 360Hz monitor isn’t snake oil – it does something . However, this is not something worth saving and putting off if you spend most of your evenings playing Civilization VI or Stardew Valley . Most of us won’t be able to take advantage of this technology if we try.