OLED displays are faster than ever. While LCD displays have been pushing 500Hz for about a year now, CES 2024 will see similarly excessive refresh rates reach their OLED siblings, with multiple displays reaching speeds of up to 360 and 480Hz.
Whenever we write about these displays, commentators somewhat wonder what the point of it all is. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time manufacturers have fought over specifications with debatable benefits to customers, whether it’s the “megahertz myth”, the megapixel wars of the 2000s, or, more recently, smartphone display resolution.
Only one or two manufacturers had high refresh rate OLED displays to show off. Samsung, Dell, and MSI have all unveiled 27-inch monitors that run at 1440p at 360Hz. Asus has equipped them with a 27-inch display with a 480Hz refresh rate. Both LG and Asus have unveiled 32-inch ‘Dual-Hz’ displays, which offer 240Hz 4K as standard but can be boosted to 480Hz if you’re happy to put up with the lower 1080p resolution.
Although these new OLED displays don’t achieve quite the same refresh rates as the fastest LCD displays, in practice, OLED’s faster pixel response times mean they’ll likely have better motion clarity nonetheless. In a video comparing the 240Hz Asus OLED screen to the 360Hz Asus LCD screen last year, YouTuber Optimum It indicates that the LCD screen had more shadows despite the higher refresh rate, and the two displays were very evenly matched in motion blur despite the differences in refresh rate. Obliterate Busters Mark Reagon believes that on a Hz-for-Hz basis, OLED displays have roughly a 1.5x to 2x advantage over LCD when it comes to motion blur. The refresh rates may not be the highest, but these displays are likely to break new ground nonetheless.
When people ask “what’s the point?” I think they ask at least two related questions. The first is whether it is possible to objectively measure the difference from a higher refresh rate display. But the second is whether you’re likely to notice and benefit from these kinds of differences personally. For example, would someone playing a multiplayer game get a competitive advantage at that type of frame rate?
according to Obliterate BustersWe have a long way to go before refresh rate improvements stop making an objective difference. You can read an in-depth analysis of the logic in this post in which they argue that we will have to go beyond 1000Hz refresh rates before displays can reduce flicker and motion blur to a level approaching the real world. This video from Monitors Unboxed does a great job of explaining why motion blur can still be present on a monitor with a refresh rate above 500Hz.
But using test patterns and cameras to objectively measure motion blur is one thing. It’s quite another thing to notice these kinds of benefits with our own eyes. Higher refresh rate monitors may be smoother, with better visual clarity and lower latency for gamers – but at what point do you stop paying the price premium they carry, or prioritizing them over other features like brightness?
Four years ago, questions about the benefits of high refresh rate displays were already widespread enough that Linus Tech’s advice I tried to test whether 240Hz monitors had reached a point of diminishing returns for gamers. Their findings were accurate, but they noted that the benefits have not yet settled into real-world use. “I wasn’t surprised to learn that 60 FPS players are at a huge disadvantage compared to high refresh rate players, but I was surprised by how big the difference is between 144 and 240 (Hz),” host Linus Sebastian said. And for what it’s worth, Optimum recently claimed that it can feel the difference even with 540Hz in practice.
All of this also assumes that you have the hardware to run games at these kinds of frame rates, and that you’re not tempted to sacrifice it in the name of running some cool visual stuff. For the foreseeable future, this likely means that the only gamers who will get the most out of 360Hz or 480Hz displays will be competitive gamers who play eSports games such as Counter strike Where every frame matters. For me, someone who was happy playing through a game like Alan Wake 2 At 40-60fps in order to enjoy the ray-traced graphics options, this is unlikely to be the case at all.
Although early hands-on coverage of MSI and Alienware’s 360Hz OLED displays from the likes of Optimum and Linus Tech Tips has been positive, when the time comes for people to decide how to spend their own money, I suspect the vast majority of people will do so. to use displays with much lower refresh rates for the foreseeable future. I can appreciate the engineering that went into making this happen. But even as someone who enjoyed watching the display specs arms race from afar, I’m not looking to replace the 100Hz ultra-wide LCD display, which I’ve been using daily for more than half a decade.
But even if you don’t feel the difference right away, it’s amazing what you can get used to over time and then immediately notice when it goes away. I can’t say I noticed a difference right away when I first used a 120Hz iPhone, but after using an iPhone almost daily for over a year, I feel it immediately when I have to use an older model. My colleague Tom Warren feels the same way about going back to 120Hz after getting used to a 240Hz computer monitor. It’s like going back to 80Mbps non-fiber after getting used to gigabit. Or, to use a more absurd example, it’s like drinking bad coffee after spending the pandemic obsessing over brewing the perfect cup at home.
Improvements in TV and display technology can seem incremental now, but they can add up over time. I’ve constantly found myself looking at new generations of display technology and wondering how things could look better, only to look back at the same 1080p and early 4K displays years later and see how outdated they have become as the technology has advanced.
I don’t know that anyone really “needs” to spend money on a 360Hz or 480Hz OLED display. But as prices come down and technology improves, I think we’ll see more and more people end up using them without thinking much about it. And I can’t wait to see if we’ll look at 240Hz the way we now look at 60Hz displays.