Acer has announced the impending arrival of what might well be the fastest monitor money can buy when it arrives on the market early next year, with a blazing-fast refresh rate of 600Hz.
The monitor in question is the 24-inch Acer Nitro XV240 F6, and it is faster than the current king of refresh rates, the 540Hz Asus ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, which launched last year. But it’s not clear if its faster refresh rate will be enough to outperform today’s top-tier OLED monitors, which max out at 480Hz.
Acer said the Nitro XV240 F6 is based on a TN LCD panel with 4K resolution, and it expects it to go on sale in the first quarter of 2024, with a price tag of $599 in the U.S and €899 in Europe. That date is still quite a way off, so it may end up not being the first 600Hz monitor in the world, but it’s certainly the first to be announced.
The company explained that users will indeed a DisplayPort 1.4 connection to deliver 600Hz content to the monitor.
It was back in 2022 that the Chinese LCD display maker BoE unveiled the world’s first LCD panel with 600Hz refresh rates, but although it had the design finalised then, the technology has yet to be made commercially available.
The 600Hz milestone is an important one that brings the industry closer to the ideal of 1,000Hz, which some say will be essential for delivering zero latency and totally eliminating motion blur, as BlurBusters explains in this article from December 2020.
It certainly represents progress, but as far as gamers are concerned, the bigger question is if the Acer Nitro XV240 F6 has what it takes to surpass this year’s cutting-edge OLED monitors, which achieve refresh rates of 480Hz
For the uninitiated, it’s a relevant question because the two technologies – OLED and LCD – differ so much that refresh rates alone aren’t the key differentiator. Most experts agree that 240Hz OLED displays are superior to 360Hz LCD panels, thanks to the faster response times of OLED. That makes them better able to limit motion blur.
As such, it’s reasonable to assume that a 480Hz OLED panel might still be superior to Acer’s 600Hz model. But we can’t be sure until we’re sure, and the first reviews of the Nitro XV240 F6 will likely deliver the verdict.
In any case, gaming diehards will likely be aware that the newest OLED monitors will almost certainly be superior in terms of overall picture quality, due to the limited contrast and colour reproduction of LCD technology. OLED also delivers better viewing angles than LCD, and Acer’s newest monitor does not appear to support HDR content either. That’s why all of the flagship gaming monitors these days are OLED models.
While the 24-inch Acer Nitro XV240 F6 is set to be the company’s premium LCD display next year, it’s not the only one, with the company also announcing a 27-inch 1080p IPS LCD model that caps out at 520Hz, plus another 27-inch 1440p IPS LCD display that achieves 500Hz.
