AOC and Philips have officially unveiled what will soon become the world’s first 1,000Hz dual-mode gaming monitors, meaning they can achieve an astonishing 1,000 frames-per-second.
That’s blazing fast, and confirms a rumour that first appeared last month, when we reported that AOC and another brand, called AntGamer, were developing new gaming displays that crash through the current ceiling of 750Hz found on the fastest monitors available today.
While AntGamer has still not made any official announcements, AOC has, along with its sister brand Philips. Both companies are subsidiaries of TP Vision, and that may explain why they’re going to be using the same IPS LCD panel on their new products.
DisplaySpecifications was the first to report on the launch, saying the new AOC AGP277QK and Philips 27M2N5500XD were announced during a special event in China, where they’ll go on sale first. According to that report, the new products will be 27-inch monitors with a 2560x1440p native resolution.
We don’t yet have the full specifications of either monitor, but the companies did reveal a few details, such as one millisecond grey-to-grey response times, a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, a wide colour gamut and calibrated Delta E<2 accuracy. They’ll both be VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified, which means we’re not expecting any fantastical HDR graphics.
Because the new monitors are “dual-mode”, that means users will be required to make a sacrifice to enjoy the full 1,000Hz frame rates. When running at full 1440p resolution, users will only get a 500Hz refresh rate, but they can double it to 1,000Hz by reducing the resolution to just 720p, meaning lower quality graphics. This is similar to how dual-mode OLED monitors that can currently reach 720Hz operate, with lower resolutions required to achieve the top speed.
A 1,000Hz refresh rate does sound impressive, but it’s probably not going to be as amazing as some might hope for. In all likelihood, the motion clarity perceived by users will probably not be all that different from what’s experienced on today’s 720Hz OLED monitors, because there are other factors at play beside the monitor’s refresh rate. The fact is, LCD monitors simply aren’t quite up to the standards of OLED, and so they struggle to achieve the same level of motion clarity even with faster refresh rates.
As FlatpanelsHD points out, the quoted 1ms G2G response time is likely to be an “absolute best-case figure” that few users will see. “For 1,000Hz, response times must consistently stay below 1ms, ideally near 0ms, which is something IPS LCD is unlikely to achieve,” FlatpanelsHD wrote.
Another caveat is that LCD gaming monitors simply cannot match OLED in terms of picture quality, as they struggle to achieve the same colour accuracy and supreme contrast levels, which means their HDR performance is often substandard. However, the rapid refresh rates may make up for it in the professional gaming world, where every split second counts.
Nonetheless, reaching 1,000Hz is a significant milestone considering it was only a few years ago that people were raving about 240Hz, and it comes years ahead of the industry’s initial expectations. Surely, it’s only a matter of time until the first OLED monitors also break through the same barrier, and when that happens, it’s going to be a really huge deal.
