Remember that breakthrough in display technology that allowed Chinese company BOE (Beijing Oriental Electronics) to create a 500Hz gaming monitor prototype? Well, either it sold that tech to Asus or maybe the two became mates. However it came to be, Asus will be the first OEM to bring a 500Hz gaming monitor to market.
The Asus ROG Swift 500Hz – which we hope isn’t the final name – was revealed during Nvidia’s keynote address at Computex 2022 earlier today. It will feature a new 24in ETN (Twisted Nematic) panel with a resolution of 1,920×1080. Nvidia is calling it “the lowest latency, highest refresh rate G-Sync esports display ever created.”
bUt ThE hUmAN eYe caN OnlY See aT 60fps
TN is the oldest of the mainstream display technologies. It’s the preferred panel type of esports competitors as it offers the best pixel response times without the ghosting or smearing that is often prevalent in IPS (in-plane switching) or VA (vertical alignment) monitors. That pixel response does come at the expense of colour accuracy and viewing angles. If you aren’t sitting directly in front of a TN monitor colours will look washed out.
If you were asking yourself why this thing appeared in Nvidia’s keynote, like we were, that’s because Nvidia is using it to punt its Reflex Analyzer software. That’s Nvidia’s answer to reducing system latency, by coordinating the game and graphics driver. Some games, like Fortnite and Apex Legends, have the tech built-in.
Nvidia referred to this as an “ETN” panel but, as usual, it didn’t give any indication as to what the ‘E’ stands for or any other concrete info on pricing or availability. A 240Hz display from Acer costs over R10,000 and a 360Hz Dell Alienware goes for over R12,000. This 500Hz Asus beast will probably be… rather pricey.
