Why refresh rate is important

Remember that the highest refresh rate monitor in the world won't make a difference if your graphics card can't keep up.

It's better to have a high-end graphics card with a middle-range monitor than a top-of-the-line monitor and mediocre graphics card. If you need a new monitor for general computing purposes, in most cases you'll want a higher resolution so the picture looks sharper.

This is beneficial when you're watching movies or doing various productivity tasks. You may also consider buying a larger monitor so you can see more at once, or even buying two cheaper monitors so you can take advantage of dual displays. When buying a monitor for serious PC gaming, a higher refresh rate is important.

If possible, try to shop for monitors in-person where you can see the differences between refresh rates. While you can find comparisons online, you can't really appreciate videos of FPS gameplay on a 60Hz monitor. As we've seen, high refresh rates are really only important for serious gamers.

Casual gamers can enjoy most titles at 60FPS, while general PC users don't have much use at all for higher frame rates.

They'll usually be better off spending money on a bigger, higher-resolution monitor instead. Having a monitor capable of high frame rate output is great, but there are a lot of other components that go into a smooth PC gaming experience, too. Need a faster computer but aren't sure what you should upgrade on your PC? Follow our PC upgrade checklist to find out.

He left his IT job to write full-time in and has never looked back. He's been covering tech tutorials, video game recommendations, and more as a professional writer for over seven years. What Is a Refresh Rate? Share Share Tweet Email. Ben Stegner Articles Published. Subscribe to our newsletter Join our newsletter for tech tips, reviews, free ebooks, and exclusive deals! Click here to subscribe. The time between these updates is measured in milliseconds ms , while the refresh rate of the display is measured in hertz Hz.

The refresh rate of your display refers to how many times per second the display is able to draw a new image. This is measured in Hertz Hz. For example, if your display has a refresh rate of Hz, it is refreshing the image times per second.

In order to take advantage of higher refresh rates, three of the most important components to consider are:. If your monitor has a refresh rate of Hz but the GPU is only supplying 30 frames per second, that higher refresh rate is not being utilized. That means higher refresh rates might be attainable on less powerful hardware, depending on the game you want to play.

The graphics settings used will also impact how hardware-intensive the experience ends up being. Lowering the resolution to p will result in a higher refresh rate at less of a cost to performance, as will turning off or lowering graphical settings. As with attaining higher resolutions, the less taxing the gameplay experience is on the hardware, the easier it will be to push the frame rate high enough to see the benefits of a high-refresh rate display.

This might mean adjusting the settings and resolutions of your games to find the balance that works for you. The best — and easiest — way to know what refresh rates your system can support is by playing games and seeing how they perform.

At least with movies, the frame rate is fixed. With games, the frame rate can fluctuate wildly. This solution to the difference between frame rate and refresh rate has been around in PC gaming for many years. This is important for console gamers playing on TVs. Some of the latest smartphone and tablet displays support some kind of VRR.

Changing the refresh rate like this reduces the risk of stutter or other unwelcome effects, and it can also reduce power consumption. The refresh rate might jump to Hz when you use the Apple Pencil or play a game, but then drop much lower when the screen is static on a menu or webpage.

Some people pick up on higher refresh rates more than others. You may have to look at displays with different refresh rates side by side to see the difference. Gamers who play fast-paced games will feel the most benefit, but anyone can enjoy the upgrade. A higher refresh rate reduces motion blur and makes action feel smoother, can make the picture appear sharper, and can make smartphones feel more responsive and speedy.

Then again, they may already feel pretty smooth, and if you don't notice, don't sweat it. The refresh rate affects motion handling; the more times the display can draw a new image the better it is for fast-moving content. Modern TVs either have a 60Hz or Hz refresh rate. Most high-end TVs have a Hz refresh rate, but it doesn't mean they're inherently better at motion handling either. The response time determines how good motion looks; a quick response time means that motion looks clear, while a TV with a slow response time leads to motion blur.

Response time and refresh rate are indirectly related as a Hz panel is expected to have a better response time than a 60Hz panel, but it's not a guarantee. Since not all content will automatically have the same frame rate as your TV's refresh rate, there are also ways a TV increases the frame rate to match up with the refresh rate, improving the appearance of motion. In a case like this, the TV either adjusts itself to match the refresh rate of the source, which effectively turns it into a 60Hz TV, or it simply doubles every frame.

As you can see from the picture above, a TV with a higher refresh rate doesn't produce less motion blur. Since both of these TVs have a very similar response time, 60 fps content results in an almost identical picture. To better showcase these differences, we compared two TVs side-by-side; a 60Hz model, and a Hz model, with similar response times.

We filmed these TVs in slow motion to easily compare each individual frame. One of the most important advantages is the ability to play back content that is meant to be displayed at 24 fps, which is often found in movies. Most TVs can simply lower their own refresh rate to 24Hz when the content is 24 fps, but some sources, such as Chromecast, output video at 60 fps, even if the content is 24 fps.

This means that the TV's refresh rate remains at 60Hz, and motion won't appear smooth, which is an effect called judder. A 60Hz TV has trouble removing 24 fps judder because 60 isn't a multiple of To display this type of content, a technique known as a " pulldown" is used.

Basically, 12 of the 24 frames repeat three times, while the other 12 repeat twice, totaling 60 frames. Not everybody notices this, but it causes some scenes, notably panning shots, to appear juddery. However, Hz TVs have an advantage here because they can simply display each frame five times since is a multiple of There are a few sources that display fps, such as the Xbox Series X or the PS5 , and having a Hz TV helps display this content at its max frame rate.

While it's rare to find content other than games with this frame rate, displaying fps has a significant impact on the perceived motion. As you can see in the picture below, content looks much smoother at fps than at 60 fps on a Hz TV. With the release of HDMI 2. This means that Hz TVs may slowly become the norm. Another place where Hz is useful is if you enjoy the motion interpolation feature found on TVs also known as the Soap Opera Effect.

It allows the TV to generate frames between existing ones, increasing the frame rate to match up to the refresh rate. This is why a Hz TV is an advantage over 60Hz since it can interpolate more types of content. There are other ways to produce a similarly clear image as a Hz refresh rate.

Essentially, the TV displays a black screen between each frame, which most people can't see, but it can also make the screen dimmer.