Is 360Hz a Waste? - 240Hz vs 360Hz Monitors

Thank you to Ruipro for sponsoring this video!

Is 360Hz a Waste? - 240Hz vs 360Hz Monitors
I know, I know, the human eye can't see past 4 frames per second, but guys 360Hz OLED monitors are here, and there selling like hotcakes, so is 360Hz truly a waste as some may think, or is it a huge upgrade worth paying for? Well fear not my fellow sweaty gamers, because as a reviewer whose thrown hands with over 20 OLEDs in just the last year alone I’m here to definitively answer that question, and in order to do so, let me buss down the 2 key advantages higher frame rates bring to the table.

The higher the frame rate the lower the input lag. Listen, you may be hard stuck in rookie lobbies now, but perhaps it's not you, but the high latency of your PC, who are we kidding, it's you, but regardless there is definitely an advantage to sustaining higher frame rates so you can react quicker. For example
60fps has a delay of 16.7ms
120fps a delay of 8.33ms
240fps a delay of 4.17ms
And 360fps a delay of just 2.78ms

As you can imagine someone at 360Hz will have a substantial advantage over a player with just 60fps, as they can theoretically react nearly 14ms faster, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but at high levels of play this is a huge difference and could make or break the game.

However when comparing 360Hz to 240Hz the difference is much smaller. In fact 360Hz is just roughly 1.5ms faster, and listen, faster is faster, but is this enough for you to have a substantial advantage? No. In fact many people may not even notice the difference if they aren't accustomed to 360Hz gaming already. Even worse, this tiny advantage comes at the cost of needing a PC that can pump out 50% more performance to sustain a stable 360Hz which also means spending A LOT more on your PC, but does that mean it's a waste?

Not necessarily

Before we make that call we need to talk about the second key advantage of higher frame rates. Motion performance.

Yes, everyone knows that lower latency is better, but in fast paced games seeing objects in motion clearly can be just as important to make sure you line up your shot correctly. This is likely the largest advantage running 360Hz has, because as you can see 144Hz OLED is already pretty decent, but trying to read text in motion is impossible. At 240Hz it starts to become much more feasible, but at 360Hz it is substantially clearer once again.

Now again you certainly don’t absolutely need this level of clarity, but even for day to day use the speed and clarity is quite nice, but in gaming it can give you that small edge you need to win the game.

However the question remains. Is it a waste? Yes and no. Yes it’s a waste in a sense that you have to pay for a significantly more powerful PC to get a small advantage in games, and I’m not just talking about the graphics card, you will even need an incredibly fast CPU and RAM to drive over 240fps consistently, but if your someone who can benefit from that advantage, or you simply enjoy the feel and look of ultra low latency & extremely smooth motion, then for you 360Hz will be worth it, as there is no technical disadvantage to having a higher framerate, so hopefully all types of monitors can eventually be available at 1000Hz.

But until that day, you will have to weigh the pros and cons of choosing between a higher resolution at a lower refresh rate, or a lower resolution at a higher refresh rate, and while that certainly will depend on your personal preferences, considering the diminishing returns beyond 240Hz, I think most gamers who play a mix of games would be better off purchasing 4K 240Hz OLED over a 360Hz 1440p OLED if you have enough PC power to run either option and you you can’t decide which you would rather have, as the bump in resolution & thus overall detail will be significantly more noticeable then the jump in speed.

Monitors Shown. Affiliate links below. I earn commission on purchases.
16:9 (4K)
16:9 (1440p)

Music

[thedisplayguy]

Thank you to Ruipro for sponsoring this video!
Monitors Shown. Affiliate links below. I earn commission on purchases.
16:9 (4K)
16:9 (1440p)

[AluminumHaste]

I went from a 240hz to 360hz and in games where I can get that FPS, it is a nice increase in smoothness, but really only when quickly whipping the camera around.

[modelcitizen]

I was sceptical about the difference, but I have been playing Apex on a PC at 240Hz consistently and whilst messing about with the new console 120Hz mode I tried 60Hz again, it feels like you are bogged down and heavy with the movement. I can't believe I thought 60 was enough in the past being a console peasant 😅 You might not be able to see the difference sometimes, but you can definitely feel it!

[martinzhang]

I have 165hz and 180hz IPS monitors with well tuned OD, and when I tried a 240hz IPS at my friend's place it's not a massive difference. However OLED is a completely different story, even at the same 240hz it's night and day clearity diofference. I'm switching to a 360hz OLED this year.

[MakeSht]

360hz feels smoother on mouse to .. not only on screen when u use high polling rate... Try to use mouse on 1000hz 240hz and try to use mouse 4000 hz on 240hz.. same with 360hz... but people never try so they can not know..

[heisseething]

If you’ve played them both you know there’s a difference lol diminishing returns be damed when you ACTUALLY perceive the change yourself you can feel it massively.

[yarincool]

1:16 the 14ms difference is not the reason why someone has a clear advantage at higher refrash rate, its the smooter image leading to faster reaction.

[JViz]

As someone who has a 300hz monitor sitting next to a 165hz monitor, just about anyone can see the difference in smoothness, let alone sitting them next to a 60hz monitor. Anyone arguing against higher frame rates doesn't know what they're talking about. The interesting part is that ELMB, ULMB, and BFI work really well too without requiring an actual 300hz frame rate. I don't really care about the reduced latency, I just want a better experience. I hope more monitors incorporate ELMB/ULMB in the future. Perhaps OLEDs can have increased brightness for those modes since they're technically only on half of the cycle?

[Dr.Kreijger]

For me the fact that you need a better PC to run 360Hz is a pointless argument for a few reasons.
First of all, most 360Hz monitors, especially OLEDs, are already expensive so if you can spend hundreds on a 360Hz monitor then you should be able to buy a PC that can get those kinds of FPS or you should stick to a lower refresh rate for now.
Second, most people who use 360Hz play competitive games like Valorant, CS2, ..., and most of the time they are not gonna use max settings ingame (depending on the game).
Thirdly, most of those competitive games are REALLY easy to drive, I have a GTX 1080 and a Ryzen 7 7700X and I can run Valorant 1440p at over 400fps even while using max settings.

[LightSaber]

4K 120Hz minimum from now on. Noticeable difference between 60fps & 120fps. Never seen or tried 240Hz so wouldn't know if it makes a difference or not.

[zPabloZB]

Hey mate! Im a competitive Fortnite player, would you recommend pushing the rig to 1440p 240hz or stay 1080p? Does the 2k resolution help with medium to long engagement clarity ?

[raffaelerusso]

I work with computers 6/8 hours a day and occasionally play some video games. When I went from a 60hz to a 120hz the difference was day/night. Now I have various displays: 90Hz(lenovo slim seven x laptop), 144Hz(lg c4 42"oled and an ultrawide VA 34" from MSI), 160Hz (lg 38" ultrawide lcd), 240Hz (asus rog strix 16" laptop 2023 with mini led), but if I'm being honest, above 120Hz I can't see a substantial difference, even when I play. To be honest, I don't play competitively, but mainly single-player games! Having said that, thank you always for everything and congratulations on your beautiful channel, which gave me a lot of advice in choosing the perfect display!

[MrDutche]

I hardly noticed a difference going from 165hz to 240hz but once used to it 165hz feels way less smooth. Noticed jump from 240hz OLED to 360hz OLED instantly. I've been playing strictly competitive games for years now tho. I don't think you'll perform any better on 360hz vs 240hz but the difference in smoothness is very noticeable. Butter smooth. That being said not going 360hz is stupid if going 1440p since they are the same price. Also 4k 240hz is way harder to run. You may average it but your minimums and 1% lows will drop frequently making you perform worse.

[aarongavin]

I'm very latency sensitive and I got the MSI MAG 271QPX for $649 USD and I absolutely love it I came from a Cooler Master Tempest Mini LED panel and the HDR quality is much better on OLED plus the clarity and motion performance is wonderful I couldn't be happier with it and it's now getting firmware updates since MSI backtracked and it's getting the same firmware updates as the MPG model so no downsides anymore

[clave]

is playing competitive fps games on a 32 inch 4k oled monitor too big? is it a disadvantage?

[Kaudrag]

I tried to limit the frame rate. For example 60, but sometimes that even increases the flickering. What I noticed is that the FPS in the monitor OSD sometimes briefly jumps to 120+ fps and then back to the normal fame rate. This happens despite the FPS being limited to 60.

Is there anything else I can do?

I checked the framerate and frametime graph with msi afterburner and they are completely flat. No spikes or drops. The msi afterburner doesn't show these 120+ with and without the capped framerate. The framerate is clearly at 60 when capped at 60.

Could it be windows 10? So is windows 11 better for G-SYNC?
Could it be a faulty panel?

Please help!

[Kaudrag]

@thedisplayguy  I capped the FPS to the half I had. Nothing changed. My Nvidia driver version is 551.86... Even with capped fps the flickering appears always in darker areas. No frametime spikes or framedrops.

Any other thing I can do?

[RobiLemos]

We like 27" 1440p for shooters mainly, 360hz is just an extra

[dangeloenglish]

We need more non oled reviews.

Most people with 2 monitors don't want 2 oleds. Specially cuz it's usually doing static tasks, and having it go to sleep all the time is annoying.

[bergdk]

Going 1080p 240hz 1ms, to 1080p 360hz 1ms, i do not think it is much worth it. But with it being an OLED 360hz 0.03ms at 1440p that is a different story and definitely worth it!