When it comes to norms in gaming, few have survived as long as the 60Hz standard for smooth gameplay, a tradition that was once the height of PC performance, but is now achievable on most setups, and even on console.
While this continues to be the performance target for many, the monitor market has moved onto higher and higher refresh rates with 144Hz considered by many to be the new standard that will replace 60Hz.
LG – with its UltraGear family of displays – brings 144Hz as a standard as we discussed in a previous story.
144Hz, for those who haven’t experienced it before, offers a level of gameplay smoothness and tactile speed that is almost impossible to match.
Many gamers have experienced the immense jump from 30Hz to 60Hz, usually by switching from console to PC, or from the previous generation of console to the latest. Most can attest that 30Hz simply isn’t an option for them anymore, and the jump from 60Hz to 144Hz is even more shocking, and intoxicating.
If you have gone from 30Hz to 60Hz and never looked back, you owe it to yourself to give 144Hz a try, just keep in mind that you may be shopping for an LG UltraGear soon after.
1440p@144Hz+ with LG UltraGear QHD
As 60Hz was once the king of refresh rates, 1080p was once the standard for resolution. 1920 X 1080 is “high definition” and it has become the de facto for most.
Thankfully this is no longer the case as display technology, content availability and pricing has all progressed to the point where almost anyone can fit a much higher resolution display into their budget and their setup.
The new gold standard for many is 2560 X 1440, or commonly referred to as simply “1440p”. This surprises some as 4K has positioned itself as the replacement for 1080p, but this simply isn’t the case.
To understand why this is we need to talk a bit about the content consumption market, especially when it comes to PC gaming. While it’s true that 4K is available in most games, especially new ones, it comes with a massive barrier of entry in the sheer horsepower needed to natively run games at that resolution.
In the past few years the PG hardware market has been volatile to say the least, with logistics problems and higher price tags pricing many out of the top tier GPUs, CPUs and other products needed to run 4K.
On top of that, in many applications, 4K is simply not needed. On many PC monitors 4K is wasted as the screen isn’t big enough to need such a high resolution. 4K is a resolution that is better appreciated on huge TVs in a living room environment or better.
So enter 1440p, the perfect middle ground between much higher resolution when compared to 1080p, and much less performance requirements compared to 4K.
1440p is the Goldilocks resolution, even on consoles. The latest generation of home consoles has long lauded its ability to run 4K, but gamers usually find themselves barely scratching 60FPS in games or, much worse, 30FPS.
1440p married to 144Hz has, then, become the advice that many share whenever a friend, family member or internet stranger is asking for advice on a new monitor. It can all be boiled down to this: 1440p@144Hz is the best intersection of high resolution for all types of games, high refresh rates for everything including esports, and ease of operation that doesn’t require a supercomputer on your desk. As consoles also adopt this methodology, those who like their gaming with a controller can also hop in on the fun.
LG offers this perfect package in the 32GN600 model of the UltraGear monitors. It features all the UltraGear features you expect like AMD FreeSync Premium, a 1ms response time, HDR10 with 95 percent sRGB coverage and more, combined with the 1440p@144Hz experience.
Except that isn’t really true, because LG offers just a bit extra as icing on the cake. The 144Hz refresh rate on the 32GN600 can be accessed by way of the two HDMI ports on the UltraGear, but use the DisplayPort instead, and you can bump that up to 165Hz.
