World’s First 600Hz Gaming Laptop Display Revealed

(Photo: Techspot)If you thought gaming at 144Hz was glorious, that might be simply quaint in a few years. At a recent technology conference in China, a company unveiled the world’s first 600Hz gaming display. This begs the question: but why? As far as we can tell, because it’s a big number. In fact, it’s bigger than the previous number, which was 480Hz. But still, would anyone even be able to discern the difference? Maybe we’re asking too many questions.

The company behind the new technology is named BOE, according to TechSpot. It recently showed off its newest wares at the World Display Industry Conference in China. Yes, that sounds like a made-up name for a conference but it appears to be legit. The company revealed a 16-inch gaming laptop with a 600Hz panel, making it the “fastest” in the gaming world. It’s unclear what kind of panel it is though, e.g. IPS, TN, or VA. It’s most likely TN, as that’s more common with high-refresh gaming monitors. This type of panel would only be suitable for e-Sports titles such as League of Legends and its ilk.

Currently, Alienware is the only company with a shipping product that even comes close to this high of a refresh rate. Earlier this year, it released 17-inch laptops with 480Hz refresh rates and 1080p resolution. Asus and Nvidia eventually one-upped Alienware at Computex this year by showing off a 500MHz gaming panel. Since then though, it’s seemingly disappeared into the ether. The company even released a video showing the benefits of 500Hz gaming. It said it designed a new type of panel it calls E-TN specifically for this application. It supposedly offers premium clarity and response times.

However, as TechSpot notes, there are diminishing returns for gamers beyond 144Hz. Most people can easily recognize the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz because the time between frames is reduced by a decent 8.3ms. Going from 300Hz to 600Hz, however, only reduces it by 1.6ms. Most people wouldn’t be able to perceive that small of a change.

Such high refresh rates in displays could nonetheless become a standard someday thanks to the progress being made in graphics power. Blizzard just bumped the frame cap in Overwatch 2 to 600fps in response to the introduction of the RTX 4090. Nvidia has yet to reveal specs or info about the mobile version of its GeForce 40 series. However, given how powerful the RTX 4090 is, it’ll be interesting to see what the mobile version can accomplish. Maybe our future really is 480Hz—and beyond.

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