Almost exactly two years ago, we were gawking at prototypes of 1,000 Hz monitors and wondering who really needed a display that could support such ludicrously smooth frame rates. Now that those prototypes are starting to develop into retail products, we’re still wondering how much of a market there is for gaming displays that can update with a new frame every single millisecond.
The latest entry in the ultra-fast refresh race is LG’s 24.5″ UltraGear 25G590B, which the company announced this week as “the world’s first Full HD gaming monitor with a native 1000Hz refresh rate” ahead of a planned launch in “select markets” in the second half of the year. That “Full HD” promise means LG’s 1,000 Hz display hits the 1080p threshold that is by far the most common resolution reported by gamers in Steam’s regular hardware surveys.
That would represent a decent step up from the likes of Acer’s Predator XB273U F6, Samsung’s Odyssey G6, or Phillips’ EVNIA 27M2N5500XD, all of which have to shift down to a relatively blurry 720p resolution to run at a full 1,000 Hz (but which support 1440p resolutions at a still-quite-fast 500 Hz). LG also notes that its high-end monitor can hit its resolution and refresh rate specs natively, without the need for any “dual mode” rebooting shenanigans to get the fastest performance.
The folks over at Blur Busters have extensively documented research showing that refresh rates of 1,000 Hz (and up) can reduce human perception of motion blur and flickering. And while the site notes that you eventually hit “diminishing returns” from all those extra frames—especially on smaller screens—there’s some evidence that you would need a 40,000 Hz monitor to totally eliminate perceived motion blur on a sufficiently large, high-resolution monitor.
Perception research aside, it’s unclear how many gamers are interested in spending extra money on a display that breaks the four-digit refresh rate barrier. While LG hasn’t announced pricing details for the UltraGear 25G590B yet, other 1,000 Hz monitors tend to run hundreds of dollars more than comparable models with lower (but still more than adequate) maximum refresh rates in the 240 to 360 Hz range. At the same time, monitors with Nvidia’s GSync Pulsar and similar technologies use “rolling scan” pulsing backlights to reduce apparent motion blur, even on “slower” 360 Hz monitors.
LG says the 25G590B is “engineered specifically for first-person shooters” and mentions an “esports-optimized design” in its marketing materials, suggesting the display is targeting the small subset of gamers who play twitch-based reflex games for a living. For everyone else, we recommend ignoring the “larger number is better” impulse and saving your hardware budget for those increasingly expensive sticks of RAM.
