High-refresh monitors are used by manufacturers to entice eSports gamers and enthusiasts looking for stutter-free gaming. Component giant Asus is topping them all by announcing the latest ROG Swift, a 24in FHD panel boasting a 500Hz refresh rate.
“This 500Hz display has been designed from the ground up for esports, using a brand new “Esports TN panel” for maximum motion clarity,” according to Asus, and it is the first time we’ve heard reference to such technology.
Digger deeper, Asus has co-developed the panel with AU Optronics, tuning traditional, high-refresh TN technology to run much faster than conventional limits of 360Hz.
Quite how this magic works is not disclosed, and TN-based panels aren’t usually the best for anything other than enormous refresh rates, but Asus goes on to say ROG Swift 500Hz is the newest member of the Nvidia G-Sync family, thus likely cutting AMD’s FreeSync out of the picture.
It’s actually possible to attain 500Hz at 1920×1080 in competitive eSports games built on older, less demanding engines. CS:GO, Overwatch and Valorant, for example, run near this insane refresh rate on current high-end GPUs supported by high-frequency CPUs, though we imagine the market for a 500Hz monitor to be niche, likely limited to die-hard gamers who believe there’s a manifest visual difference between, say, 240Hz and 500Hz.
Undaunted by sky-high framerate opportunity, Nvidia has posted an informative video detailing the benefits of 500Hz in Valorant. Have a watch and see if you agree with the company’s assertions of smoothing animation, removing ghosting, and reducing latency.
