AUO Teases A Bodacious 49-Inch Gaming Monitor At 360Hz And Also A 540Hz Display
We'll have to wait for a full spec sheet but in the meantime, AUO has offered up a few nuggets to whet our appetite. The display maker says its 49-inch is coming to "satisfy the needs of real-time strategy gamers" with a 5K resolution panel (32:9 aspect ratio) and a fast 360Hz refresh rate. It will also sport an R1000 curvature.
"Through its exquisite 5K high-resolution display capabilities and native VA contrast ratio of 5000:1, it achieves the ultimate contrast performance, demonstrating unrivaled advantages in dark scene games and ushering gamers fully into the gaming world," AUO states.
That's essentially like having two monitors but without the bezel separation in the middle. We'll have to wait and see what other goodies might be included, such as G-Sync and FreeSync support, peak brightness, potential HDR support, and what type of backlighting. Same goes for pricing.
As a point of reference, you can score Samsung's 49-inch Odyssey Neo G9 (G95NA) with 4K resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, G-Sync and FreeSync support, and mini LED backlighting for $1,773.08 on Amazon. There's also LG's Deco Gear 49-inch monitor with a 4K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate for $829.99 on Amazon. AUO's upcoming model could potentially trump them both on features (we already know it's faster) but we'll have to see how the bang-for-buck proposition plays out.
For players who need speed over everything else, AUO is also planning to release a 24-inch gaming monitor with an incredibly fast 540Hz refresh rate. AUO is billing this as the "world's highest refresh rate display" though it's all about availability. You may recall that ASUS also unveiled a 540Hz gaming monitor at CES, the ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, but it hasn't landed at retail yet.
No other concrete details are available, though in general terms AUO is promising a "premium picture quality" to go along with the blistering-fast refresh rate for an "unprecedented" smooth gaming experience.
It goes without saying that to take full advantage of ultra-high refresh rates you'll need a graphics card that can keep up. One thing that helps is that this will be a Full HD 1080p monitor rather than 1440p or 4K, both of which are demanding of your GPU hardware. And of course you'll typically only see super-high frame rates in less demanding esports titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the like.
