Question Is buying a monitor with 100+Hz refresh rate a waste of money in most cases?

[modeonoff]

Hello, I have an i9-9900K & RTX2080Ti. In all games, I set to the highest settings. I just used alt+R to check the frame rate of some games. They are mostly around 60-70Hz. Occasionally at 100Hz but never went above. In this case, is it a waste of money to pay more for a 4K@144Hz monitor rather than a 4K@60Hz monitor? In daily productivity applications under Windows 10, I don't seem to feel smoother operations using a 144Hz gaming monitor.

 

[Math Geek]

it's not totally a waste. if you sometimes see better than 60 fps, then having the ability to show 144 hz is a good thing.

i don't buy into those folks pretending they can tell the difference between 100 fps and 500 fps, but i could def see the difference from 60 to 100 fps.

if you are happy with what you got then don't bother, but if you truly feel like you need a touch more, then go for it. but don't be swayed by the marketing hype.

fps is just a number, if you are ok with 60, then that's plenty

i went from 60 hz to 144hz screen and think the main difference for me was just the better screen and not so much the extra fps it could show. i'd focus on the image quality more than how many times it can show you that image. 144 refreshes per second of a terrible image is really not worth it. lol

 

[modeonoff]

I bought three BenQ EX3210U but each of them has some issues. Perhaps return all of them to get less expensive ones. More expensive monitors do not guarantee they are free from defects.

If buying a monitor just for 4K gaming, isn't a large screen high refresh rate TV better?

 

[Math Geek]

everyone has a return policy and warranty for a reason.

i am not advocating expensive means quality for sure. but it is worth reading a couple reviews to be sure you know what to expect. my fancy 144hz screen is an AOC 24G1 i got for $149 on sale. but for a budget monitor it is night and day better than what i was using

 

[modeonoff]

everyone has a return policy and warranty for a reason.

i am not advocating expensive means quality for sure. but it is worth reading a couple reviews to be sure you know what to expect. my fancy 144hz screen is an AOC 24G1 i got for $149 on sale. but for a budget monitor it is night and day better than what i was using

Yes, I have spent lots of times watching reviews. Problem is most people don't say negative things.

 

[Math Geek]

yah that does seem to be true. plus i know nothing about monitors so most of the reported numbers were jibberish to me.

i feel your pain for sure. i read probably a dozen on the one i got and most said "for the money, this is a great buy, better out there for sure, but great for the price."

that was good enough for me and i am happy, but i don't over think it. i just use my system and don't bother digging too deep unless something goes wrong.

 

[modeonoff]

If they were prefect, I might keep them but they have issues that the manufacturer does not know for sure what is wrong and I cannot keep spending time to keep doing tests for them. In addition to other issues, there are also backlight bleed. I am also a bit pis*ed off by them saying that they don't test their monitors in the dark and I should not use them in a dark environment even they have Cinema mode. I can see the bleed even brightness is at the minimum.

 

[Math Geek]

they do like to pass off defects as somehow your issue and not theirs. i use a tv connected to the pc for movie watching so not experienced those dark issues myself.

 

[Frag Maniac]

As long as you have the GPU power to drive it, and it's a good display, it's not a waste at all really.

 

[Flayed]

If you already have a 4k 60Hz monitor then upgrading to a high refresh one does seem like an extravagance, but if you are buying a 4k monitor anyway then it seems reasonable.

 

[hang-the-9]

Hello, I have an i9-9900K & RTX2080Ti. In all games, I set to the highest settings. I just used alt+R to check the frame rate of some games. They are mostly around 60-70Hz. Occasionally at 100Hz but never went above. In this case, is it a waste of money to pay more for a 4K@144Hz monitor rather than a 4K@60Hz monitor? In daily productivity applications under Windows 10, I don't seem to feel smoother operations using a 144Hz gaming monitor.

A benefit of the higher refresh rate monitors can be more than just the refresh rate. Often they are better quality screens in general. Also even using basic Windows usage, I find that a higher refresh rate is smoother with mouse motions and windows refresh than a 60hz one. Even my 75hz screen feels smoother a bit in Windows over 60, and there is a clear difference for me at 120+ hz.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Hello, I have an i9-9900K & RTX2080Ti. In all games, I set to the highest settings. I just used alt+R to check the frame rate of some games. They are mostly around 60-70Hz. Occasionally at 100Hz but never went above. In this case, is it a waste of money to pay more for a 4K@144Hz monitor rather than a 4K@60Hz monitor? In daily productivity applications under Windows 10, I don't seem to feel smoother operations using a 144Hz gaming monitor.

It depends on the features of the monitor and whether or not you care about them. A lot of 60Hz monitors are basic in terms of features, which is fine if you don't care about things like adaptive syncing or BFI for low motion blur.

If buying a monitor just for 4K gaming, isn't a large screen high refresh rate TV better?

Not really. While I have used my LG C9 for PC gaming on occasion and I'd argue it's still better than my Samsung Odyssey G7 for this purpose, my problems with using a TV are:

• A large screen takes up a lot of desk space.
• If I have to move my head around to see parts of the screen, because it's big and up close, it's not really good for ergonomics.
• If I view the screen from further away, then it becomes cumbersome to use for regular computery things. It's fine if I'm gaming and I can use a wireless controller
• TVs typically need to be on some sort of "Game Mode", otherwise they have noticeable input lag. This also means they could potentially lose out on image quality

If they were prefect, I might keep them but they have issues that the manufacturer does not know for sure what is wrong and I cannot keep spending time to keep doing tests for them. In addition to other issues, there are also backlight bleed. I am also a bit pis*ed off by them saying that they don't test their monitors in the dark and I should not use them in a dark environment even they have Cinema mode. I can see the bleed even brightness is at the minimum.

If you get an LCD panel, you're going to get backlight bleed regardless of what you go with. That's just the nature of LCDs. You have to get an OLED display if you want zero backlight issues. Even TVs or monitors with multi-zone dimming can have haloing, though supposedly Samsung's new Neo QLED TVs have enough zones to make this "mostly not perceptible"

 

[sizzling]

I don’t think the Hz is the typical improvement. Higher Hz monitors usually have better pixel response times which will give a clearer image on fast moving objects. Therefore the 144Hz monitor set to 60Hz may display moving images better than the native 60Hz. Obviously this is generalised and may not apply to all comparisons. Would I say it’s worth the upgrade if that’s all you are getting, no.