The Chinese manufacturer BOE has reportedly built a 27-inch monitor with a refresh rate of 500 Hz, or the ability to display up to 500 image frames per second -- a new record!
Today, many consumer displays aimed at gamers offer a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which is ideal for ensuring excellent fluidity in gaming contexts. Professional e-sports players sometimes use screens with a refresh rate of 360 Hz. Essentially, the higher the refresh rate, the smoother the image and the lower the latency.
BOE isn't yet officially communicating about what is more of a prototype than a new product. But, according to the Chinese news site Sina, it appears that this is not an OLED screen. It is reportedly a solution based on metal oxides instead of copper, which would also have the benefit of reducing the screen's power consumption.
To be able to support such a rate -- displaying a new image frame every two milliseconds -- a particularly powerful graphics card would be needed. And, with this kind of frame rate, there's no question of exceeding high definition (1080p). Moreover, few games today can claim to display 500 frames per second.
Still, this level of performance could open up new perspectives, especially for gamers, who could theoretically benefit from an almost perfect fluidity onscreen. After demonstrating its expertise, it remains to be seen whether BOE (or others) will start marketing such a monitor, either under the firm's own name or for one of its customers.
Although relatively unknown, BOE is, in fact, one of the world's leading manufacturers of flat screen display panels, supplying many brands, such as Apple and Huawei.
