Chinese brand SDC has announced the fastest OLED monitor yet, offering up to 720Hz refresh rate to demanding gamers. Built for speed, this bad boy will require a high-end gaming machine to have a chance of extracting its full potential. Whenever it launches, this speed demon has the potential to put TN-based monitors to rest once and for all.
The 540-Meta is a 26.5in QHD (2560×1440) gaming monitor, powered by a lightning-fast 4th Gen W-OLED panel running at 540Hz. Not satisfied with being faster than any OLED solution currently on the market, 540-Meta can go even higher, reaching up to 720Hz in its special mode. While not as fast as the recently announced 750Hz display from Koorui, this time the underlying panel technology is the much sought-after OLED instead of TN. Add to that a 0.03ms pixel response time plus a VESA CearMR 15,000 certification, and you have a blazing fast display with excellent image clarity even during intense movements.
Unless SDC has developed some secret sauce, this monitor is likely a dual-mode affair. Not only does it list two refresh rates with both 540Hz and 720Hz on the billing, but its ports max out at DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. Sending data for 720 QHD frames would require at least an 80Gb/s DisplayPort 2.1 interface plus DSC (Display Stream Compression), so this all suggests the maximum refresh rate will saturate at 1080p instead.
Featuring a Primary RGB Tandem stacking technology, 540-Meta also offers great image quality, capable of reproducing 99.5% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. Combine that with OLED’s outstanding contrast and a rated peak brightness of 1,500nits to craft the ultimate gaming experience. Even the full-screen brightness is respectable at 335nits, beating current OLED offerings, which hover between 250-300nits. But as usual, these are first-party claims, so take them with a grain of salt.
Now, higher refreshes are nice and all, but are current PCs able to push 720fps? Turns out, yes, but with a rather large caveat. Competitive games such as Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant manage around 700fps when all settings are as low as they’ll possibly go provided you have top-of-the-line components like GeForce RTX 5090 and Ryzen 7 9800X3D running at 1080p. Extend this to modern triple-A games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Hogwarts Legacy, and you’ll need a rather outlandish rig with a watercooled appendage as large as your gaming PC to pull it off.
No doubt many are already eyeing up 1,000Hz monitors as you read this, especially since TCL showcased the world’s first back in mid-2024, and scheduled its release for 2027. Still, it’s going to take a lot of grunt for gaming PCs to catch up without lofty sacrifices.
Pricing-wise, the 540-Meta is expected to retail for ¥150,000 (£766), a reasonable asking price for such a class-leading display. The only issue is that we may not see it outside of China.
