Think Your Gaming Monitor Is Fast? This One Hits A Blistering 1080Hz
Old school PC geeks may remember a time when AMD and Intel were in a race to 1GHz and beyond, back before multiple cores, hybrid designs, and mountains of stacked cache took center stage. Those days may be gone forever, but now we have monitor makers trying to one-up each other with increasingly fast speeds, and HKC is touting a gaming monitor capable of breaching the 1,000Hz refresh rate barrier.
Built around a Fast TN panel, HKC's new AntGamer ANT275PQ Max display is another entry in the rapidly growing line of dual-mode monitors that are becoming increasingly popular. At its native 1440p resolution, it can hit a blistering 540Hz, though that somehow seems pedestrian compared to its full speed capabilities. Drop the resolution down to 720p and it can operate at a screaming-fast 1,080Hz refresh rate.
This is the appeal of dual-mode monitors, only at a much higher level than what we've seen to date. The idea is to give users a choice between playing games at a higher resolution for more visual splendor, or playing at a lower resolution and cranking up the refresh rate for an edge in competitive gaming.
In this case, coaxing 540 frames per second is already a tough ask of most graphics cards, at least in general. It all depends on GPU, whether or not you're taking advantage of upscaling technologies (AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution or FSR, NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling or DLSS, and Intel Xe Super Sampling or XeSS), and the game being played—it's much easier to hit triple-digit frame rates in less demanding titles that are popular in the esports sector, versus more demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Details beyond the refresh rates on the AntGamer ANT275PC Max are light, though the model designation suggests it's a 27-inch display. We're also likely looking at HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity to drive those ultra-fast refresh rates.
While dual-mode displays are growing in popularity, it remains to be seen if gamers will embrace having to drop down to 720p for an ultra-high refresh rate. For those who are not willing to do so, HKC is also rolling out what it claims is the first-ever 27-inch 4K dual-more monitor to hit 800Hz at 1080p.
As spotted by WCCFTech, this display can run at a respectable 200Hz at its native 4K resolution, but also has the option of cranking things up to 800Hz at 1080p, which is four times as fast. HKC is touting a self-developed, high performance driver chip and advanced panel technology for making this possible.
There's no mention of pricing or availability for either monitor, though perhaps we'll get more details at CES next week.
