How many Hz do you actually need?

Refresh rate and frame rate are not the same thing

Hertz measure how many times per second the monitor redraws the image. FPS measure how many images per second the graphics card produces. They are two different things, and what you see is always the lower of the two: a 240 Hz monitor fed 80 FPS looks like 80 FPS, and a card pushing 200 FPS into a 60 Hz panel looks like 60.

So the right question is not how much refresh rate you want, but how many frames your machine produces in the games you actually play. That number, not the one on the shelf label, is the one in charge.

The improvement is not linear either. Going from 60 to 144 Hz is enormous and anyone notices it within a minute, even just moving the mouse across the desktop. From 144 to 240 you notice it, but you have to look for it. From 240 to 360 you are in territory only regular, deliberate shooter players reliably distinguish.

How much refresh rate each kind of game asks for

In competitive shooters — Counter-Strike, Valorant, Apex, Overwatch — refresh rate is the most profitable money in the whole setup. These are light games that produce hundreds of frames even on modest cards, so the monitor genuinely becomes the bottleneck. Here 180 Hz is a sensible floor and 240 Hz the sweet spot.

In graphically demanding open-world, RPG or adventure titles the opposite is true: the card rarely clears 60-100 FPS at high settings. Paying for 240 Hz to play that way is buying capacity your machine will never feed. That money goes much further spent on resolution, contrast or size.

And there is a very common middle case: people who play both. The answer there is usually a 165-200 Hz QHD panel, which leaves headroom in competitive titles without wasting panel on the heavy ones.

Sync: why 90 FPS can look worse than 60

When the card's frames and the monitor's refreshes are out of step, the screen draws half an old image and half a new one. That is tearing: a horizontal line splitting the picture, most visible when you swing the camera.

Adaptive sync fixes it by making the monitor wait for the card instead of the other way round. FreeSync, G-Sync and Adaptive-Sync are trade names for the same principle, and almost every gaming monitor now includes it. It is worth checking and switching on, because it is not always enabled out of the box.

The detail almost nobody mentions: sync only works inside a refresh-rate window. Below the monitor's minimum, the stutter comes back. That is why a panel with a wide range, say 48 to 240 Hz, behaves better in demanding games than one with a narrow window, even when the headline number is identical.

How to decide without getting it wrong

Start by checking which card you have and what frame rate it gives you in your main game at the resolution you want to run. If that number sits near 100, a 144-180 Hz panel is plenty and will stay plenty for a while. If it comfortably clears 200, then 240 Hz starts to make sense.

A monitor outlives a graphics card by some margin, so buying a little headroom is reasonable. But headroom is not the same as excess: 240 Hz is headroom if you play competitive titles, and wasted money if you play open worlds on ultra.

And if you are torn between more refresh rate and a better panel at the same price, for most people the panel wins. Refresh rate shows up in motion; contrast, colour and resolution show up the whole time.

What we would buy

The models in the catalogue that best match what is explained above.

Frequently asked questions