MAY 24, 2022
ASUS ROG announced this past week that it was manufacturing a 500Hz 1080p monitor. A 500Hz monitor is a big advancement, but does it really matter? Can we see a difference with the human eye? ASUS states that this will provide a competitive advantage to professional esports gamers. In 2012, ASUS released the world’s first 144Hz monitor, then released its 240Hz monitor in 2017, and its 360Hz monitor in 2020.
Essentially, the new 500Hz monitor from ASUS ROG would be able to refresh the image on the screen 500 times per second. And that is important to gamers because the idea is it will provide them a competitive advantage by allowing them to see things faster than a competitive player who may only be getting their screens refreshed every 144 times per second. If some of this seems foreign, a good primer on how to select a gaming monitor and some of the terms discussed in this article can be found here.
Can Humans Notice 500Hz?
You might be asking yourself, “that sounds great, but does it really matter? Can my eyes even catch up to that?” Well, the experts seem to be out according to Healthline.com who published an article discussing the human eyes and frames per second (FPS). The article does state that research has shown “the brain can process an image that your eye sees for only 13 milliseconds” and “Thirteen milliseconds translate into about 75 frames per second”. That being said, our brains and eyes take in a lot more than what’s in front of a screen in our peripheral vision. Another article on nature.com shares that humans can perceive flicker rates at above 500Hz. From that same study, they showed that some people can see flicker rates at 1000Hz.
What Do Real-World Gamers Say About 500Hz?
When the news broke about the 500Hz monitor, it was shared on Reddit in the subreddit r/hardware and received over 500 upvotes within the first 5 days. Several users spoke about their experience with previous upgrades, such as going from 144Hz to 240Hz. The user u/UnfairPiglet said, “I have a 144Hz monitor, and I occasionally borrow my brother’s 240Hz monitor, I could definitely tell the difference in CSGO, much easier to spray control, quickscope with awp/scout, etc.”. u/beatpickle said “I’ve always been perceptible to refresh rates. 144hz to me now from 360 feels like the similar difference from 144 to 60.”
Others had more critical things in general to say about the new monitor. u/kry_some_more said “1080p, don’t make me laugh Asus. Once you go 4K, you never go back”. And u/Devgel said “you need a lot of system RAM bandwidth to push that many frames, although DDR5 should alleviate that to an extent”.
ASUS ROG 500Hz Monitor
Overall, it seems that many are excited about upgrading to 500Hz. Many say they have noticed the difference when comparing upper levels of refresh rates. What refresh rate does your monitor have? Mention your responses to @goodtechmaster on twitter.com.