BOE Technology has achieved a world first in terms of the fastest refresh rate ever, with a panel reaching 500Hz.
BOE (Beijing Oriental Electronics) is a big player in panel production, and as Chinese news site Sina points out (via Tom's Hardware), the company has managed to design a 27-inch monitor with Full HD resolution and a 500. Hz refresh rate.
Clearly, a gaming monitor designed to output the highest possible frame rates for high-end competitive gaming, unsurprisingly also has a 1ms response time.
No other information is provided on the screen, but Tom also points out that it offers 8-bit color and support for an 8-way eDP signal.
The monitor uses a "high-mobility oxide backplane" to make it easy to jump to 500Hz, which is a big step up when you consider that the fastest panels on the market today offer a 360Hz refresh rate.
At this point, it's a prototype model, so it's not clear when BOE might try to push full-volume manufacturing of such a monitor, but it's probably pretty far along.
Analysis: So Fast That Hertz (Your Wallet)
A 500Hz monitor using this kind of fancy new tech will no doubt drain your wallet when (or maybe if) it finally comes out. As we noted above, this would be aimed at pro gamers who aren't short on cash, of course, though the 27-inch size is an odd choice considering most people want a blazing-fast 1080p display to push frame rates. across the roof, opt for a smaller 24-inch panel.
Typically, at 27-inches, we'd expect to jump to 1440p, and that's the other route high refresh rate monitors take. Nvidia is giving new impetus to 1440p 'esports displays' to replace 1080p, now that its high-end GPUs can keep up with extremely high frame rates at 1440p (at least in esports games less). demanding), and we saw the likes of the AOC AG274QGM being readied for release.
The latter is a 300Hz monitor, but that's more than enough for most gamers realistically, and there are diminishing returns above 300Hz (or possibly 240Hz) anyway. You may end up paying a premium that's just not worth it, frankly, and even on less demanding titles, driving 500fps (and a solid 500fps, not just at that level) won't be worth it.
Still, it's nice to have options, and we can't deny that we'd like to try a 500Hz monitor if we got the chance in the future. As mentioned, we won't see this kind of super-high refresh rate monitor on sale for some time, probably next year. Remember that we've already heard that 480Hz monitors will be on the way from AU Optronics and LG Display, but not before 2023.
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