lcd panel refresh rate free sample

The refresh rate of a display is the number of times per second that the image refreshes on the screen. For example, a 60Hz display will update the screen 60 times per second.

Overall, the refresh rate determines how smoothly motion appears on your screen. For example, if you’re playing a game that has a lot of fast-moving action, a higher refresh rate can help improve your overall gaming experience to keep up with the action. A higher refresh can also help you get a better experience with smoother motion when you"re browsing the web or using a digital pen to write or draw.

A higher refresh rate can also reduce battery life because it uses more power. So if you"re using a laptop or tablet and want to save some battery, you could lower the refresh rate. However, that might also reduce the overall experience when you"re using your device.

Note:You might see the word “dynamic” next to some refresh rates that are listed. Dynamic refresh rates will increase the refresh rate automatically when you’re inking and scrolling, and then lower it when you’re not doing these types of things. This helps to save battery and provide a smoother experience.

Even though we don"t see it, our TV is constantly refreshing itself every second. A refresh rate defines how many times per second it draws a new image on the screen, and it"s written out in Hertz (Hz). A 60Hz refresh rate means that the screen is refreshing itself 60 times every second, and at 120Hz, it"s refreshing itself 120 times every second. This is different from frame rate, which is how many times per second the source sends a new frame. So if you have a source that"s displaying 60 frames per second, you always want your TV to be refreshing itself 60 times/second so that the refresh and frame rate match up, otherwise motion may look blurry.

The refresh rate affects motion handling; the more times the display can draw a new image the better it is for fast-moving content. Modern TVs either have a 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rate. Most high-end TVs have a 120Hz refresh rate, but it doesn"t mean they"re inherently better at motion handling either. The response time determines how good motion looks; a quick response time means that motion looks clear, while a TV with a slow response time leads to motion blur. Response time and refresh rate are indirectly related as a 120Hz panel is expected to have a better response time than a 60Hz panel, but it"s not a guarantee.

Since not all content will automatically have the same frame rate as your TV"s refresh rate, there are also ways a TV increases the frame rate to match up with the refresh rate, improving the appearance of motion.

A 60 fps video played on a 120Hz TV should look almost identical to the same content played on a 60Hz TV. In a case like this, the TV either adjusts itself to match the refresh rate of the source, which effectively turns it into a 60Hz TV, or it simply doubles every frame.

As you can see from the picture above, a TV with a higher refresh rate doesn"t produce less motion blur. Since both of these TVs have a very similar response time, 60 fps content results in an almost identical picture.

While a 120Hz TV doesn"t inherently produce better motion, it can provide a few advantages over standard 60Hz TVs. One of the most important advantages is the ability to play back content that is meant to be displayed at 24 fps, which is often found in movies. Most TVs can simply lower their own refresh rate to 24Hz when the content is 24 fps, but some sources, such as Chromecast, output video at 60 fps, even if the content is 24 fps. This means that the TV"s refresh rate remains at 60Hz, and motion won"t appear smooth, which is an effect called judder. A 60Hz TV has trouble removing 24 fps judder because 60 isn"t a multiple of 24. To display this type of content, a technique known as a "3:2 pulldown" is used. Basically, 12 of the 24 frames repeat three times, while the other 12 repeat twice, totaling 60 frames. Not everybody notices this, but it causes some scenes, notably panning shots, to appear juddery. However, 120Hz TVs have an advantage here because they can simply display each frame five times since 120 is a multiple of 24.

There are a few sources that display 120 fps, such as the Xbox Series X or the PS5, and having a 120Hz TV helps display this content at its max frame rate. While it"s rare to find content other than games with this frame rate, displaying 120 fps has a significant impact on the perceived motion. As you can see in the picture below, content looks much smoother at 120 fps than at 60 fps on a 120Hz TV.

Another place where 120Hz is useful is if you enjoy the motion interpolation feature found on TVs (also known as the Soap Opera Effect). It allows the TV to generate frames between existing ones, increasing the frame rate to match up to the refresh rate. Most TVs have this feature; a 60Hz TV can interpolate 30 fps content, while a 120Hz TV can interpolate 30 and 60 fps content. This is why a 120Hz TV is an advantage over 60Hz since it can interpolate more types of content.

There are other ways to produce a similarly clear image as a 120Hz refresh rate. Many TVs these days have a feature called Black Frame Insertion. Essentially, the TV displays a black screen between each frame, which most people can"t see, but it can also make the screen dimmer. On most LED TVs, this is achieved by adjusting the flicker frequency of the backlight, which results in the backlight being turned off for half the frame. On OLED TVs, which don"t have a backlight, this is done by inserting a black frame in-between each frame.

A TV is only as good as the content you are playing, and unfortunately, very little 120 fps content actually exists. With the new HDMI 2.1 standard, gaming consoles like the Xbox Series X and PS5 support 120 fps, but there isn"t much online content available at such a high frame rate. We"ve compiled a couple of lists of common entertainment sources as well as their respective refresh rates.

A source"s frame rate isn"t always constant, especially in games. It may drop and if that happens, it can lead to screen tearing because the frame rate of the game and the refresh rate of your TV don"t match up. There"s a feature called variable refresh rate (VRR) that aims to match the refresh and frame rate on-the-go, so if the frame rate of the game drops, the TV automatically lowers its refresh rate as well. This is only possible if both the TV and the source support VRR.

TV companies will often market their refresh rates in ways to make it seem like it"s higher than it actually is. A company like Samsung uses the term "Motion Rate"; the Motion Rate on a 60Hz TV is 120, while a 120Hz model has a Motion Rate of 240; they effectively double the refresh rate to come up with this number, and there"s no real explanation as to why it"s marketed like that. LG uses "TruMotion", Vizio has "Effective Refresh Rate", and Sony has two terms: "MotionFlow XR" and "X-Motion Clarity". These marketing numbers don"t really mean anything, and you need to check the TV"s specs to find the real refresh rate.

LCD TVs are lit by LED lights, and most TVs use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight. What this means is that the backlight turns itself off every few seconds, so it doesn"t get too bright. It"s not visible to the human eye because of how fast the frequency is. Flicker frequency, like refresh rate, is measured in Hz because we want to know how many times it flickers every second.

If the flicker frequency doesn"t match up with the refresh or frame rates, it can create some image duplication. As you can see in the images below, motion on the LG UN8500 has image duplication because its backlight flickers at 120Hz; this is double the 60 fps source. However, the Sony X800H has a flicker-free backlight, so there"s no image duplication - the motion blur is caused by a slower response time.

A refresh rate defines how often the screen refreshes itself every second. Although we can"t see it, the TV draws a new image from the source every few milliseconds. Generally, a higher refresh rate TV results in better motion handling, but it"s not always the case as there are other factors that come into play with motion. It"s important that your source"s frame rate and the TV"s refresh rate each match in order to create smooth, stutter-free motion. For most people, a TV with a 60Hz refresh rate is good enough since there isn"t much 4k content that goes past 60 fps. However, 120Hz TVs with HDMI 2.1 support are beneficial to gamers as they allow for higher frame rates.

The refresh rate (or "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate", terminology originating with the cathode ray tubes) is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate, which describes how many images are stored or generated every second by the device driving the display.

On cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, higher refresh rates produce less flickering, thereby reducing eye strain. In other technologies such as liquid-crystal displays, the refresh rate affects only how often the image can potentially be updated.

Non-raster displays may not have a characteristic refresh rate. Vector displays, for instance, do not trace the entire screen, only the actual lines comprising the displayed image, so refresh speed may differ by the size and complexity of the image data.

Raster-scan CRTs by their nature must refresh the screen, since their phosphors will fade and the image will disappear quickly unless refreshed regularly.

In a CRT, the vertical scan rate is the number of times per second that the electron beam returns to the upper left corner of the screen to begin drawing a new frame.vertical blanking signal generated by the video controller, and is partially limited by the monitor"s maximum horizontal scan rate.

The refresh rate can be calculated from the horizontal scan rate by dividing the scanning frequency by the number of horizontal lines, plus some amount of time to allow for the beam to return to the top. By convention, this is a 1.05x multiplier.1280 × 1024 results in a refresh rate of 96,000 ÷ (1024 × 1.05) ≈ 89 Hz (rounded down).

CRT refresh rates have historically been an important factor in videogame programming. In early videogame systems, the only time available for computation was during the vertical blanking interval, during which the beam is returning to the top corner of the screen and no image is being drawn.screen tearing.

Unlike CRTs, where the image will fade unless refreshed, the pixels of liquid-crystal displays retain their state for as long as power is provided, and consequently there is no intrinsic flicker regardless of refresh rate. However, refresh rate still determines the highest frame rate that can be displayed, and despite there being no actual blanking of the screen, the vertical blanking interval is still a period in each refresh cycle when the screen is not being updated, during which the image data in the host system"s frame buffer can be updated.

On smaller CRT monitors (up to about 15 in or 38 cm), few people notice any discomfort between 60–72 Hz. On larger CRT monitors (17 in or 43 cm or larger), most people experience mild discomfort unless the refresh is set to 72 Hz or higher. A rate of 100 Hz is comfortable at almost any size. However, this does not apply to LCD monitors. The closest equivalent to a refresh rate on an LCD monitor is its frame rate, which is often locked at 60 fps. But this is rarely a problem, because the only part of an LCD monitor that could produce CRT-like flicker—its backlight—typically operates at around a minimum of 200 Hz.

Different operating systems set the default refresh rate differently. Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 (First and Second Editions) set the refresh rate to the highest rate that they believe the display supports. Windows NT-based operating systems, such as Windows 2000 and its descendants Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, set the default refresh rate to a conservative rate, usually 60 Hz. Some fullscreen applications, including many games, now allow the user to reconfigure the refresh rate before entering fullscreen mode, but most default to a conservative resolution and refresh rate and let you increase the settings in the options.

Old monitors could be damaged if a user set the video card to a refresh rate higher than the highest rate supported by the monitor. Some models of monitors display a notice that the video signal uses an unsupported refresh rate.

Some LCDs support adapting their refresh rate to the current frame rate delivered by the graphics card. Two technologies that allow this are FreeSync and G-Sync.

When LCD shutter glasses are used for stereo 3D displays, the effective refresh rate is halved, because each eye needs a separate picture. For this reason, it is usually recommended to use a display capable of at least 120 Hz, because divided in half this rate is again 60 Hz. Higher refresh rates result in greater image stability, for example 72 Hz non-stereo is 144 Hz stereo, and 90 Hz non-stereo is 180 Hz stereo. Most low-end computer graphics cards and monitors cannot handle these high refresh rates, especially at higher resolutions.

For LCD monitors the pixel brightness changes are much slower than CRT or plasma phosphors. Typically LCD pixel brightness changes are faster when voltage is applied than when voltage is removed, resulting in an asymmetric pixel response time. With 3D shutter glasses this can result in a blurry smearing of the display and poor depth perception, due to the previous image frame not fading to black fast enough as the next frame is drawn.

This gif animation shows a rudimentary comparison of how motion varies with 4Hz, 12Hz, and 24Hz refresh rates. Entire sequence has a frame rate of 24Hz.

The development of televisions in the 1930s was determined by a number of technical limitations. The AC power line frequency was used for the vertical refresh rate for two reasons. The first reason was that the television"s vacuum tube was susceptible to interference from the unit"s power supply, including residual ripple. This could cause drifting horizontal bars (hum bars). Using the same frequency reduced this, and made interference static on the screen and therefore less obtrusive. The second reason was that television studios would use AC lamps, filming at a different frequency would cause strobing.NTSC color coding) and 50 Hz System B/G (almost always used with PAL or SECAM color coding). This accident of chance gave European sets higher resolution, in exchange for lower frame-rates. Compare System M (704 × 480 at 30i) and System B/G (704 × 576 at 25i). However, the lower refresh rate of 50 Hz introduces more flicker, so sets that use digital technology to double the refresh rate to 100 Hz are now very popular. (see Broadcast television systems)

Similar to some computer monitors and some DVDs, analog television systems use interlace, which decreases the apparent flicker by painting first the odd lines and then the even lines (these are known as fields). This doubles the refresh rate, compared to a progressive scan image at the same frame rate. This works perfectly for video cameras, where each field results from a separate exposure – the effective frame rate doubles, there are now 50 rather than 25 exposures per second. The dynamics of a CRT are ideally suited to this approach, fast scenes will benefit from the 50 Hz refresh, the earlier field will have largely decayed away when the new field is written, and static images will benefit from improved resolution as both fields will be integrated by the eye. Modern CRT-based televisions may be made flicker-free in the form of 100 Hz technology.

Many high-end LCD televisions now have a 120 or 240 Hz (current and former NTSC countries) or 100 or 200 Hz (PAL/SECAM countries) refresh rate. The rate of 120 was chosen as the least common multiple of 24 fps (cinema) and 30 fps (NTSC TV), and allows for less distortion when movies are viewed due to the elimination of telecine (3:2 pulldown). For PAL at 25 fps, 100 or 200 Hz is used as a fractional compromise of the least common multiple of 600 (24 × 25). These higher refresh rates are most effective from a 24p-source video output (e.g. Blu-ray Disc), and/or scenes of fast motion.

As movies are usually filmed at a rate of 24 frames per second, while television sets operate at different rates, some conversion is necessary. Different techniques exist to give the viewer an optimal experience.

The combination of content production, playback device, and display device processing may also give artifacts that are unnecessary. A display device producing a fixed 60 fps rate cannot display a 24 fps movie at an even, judder-free rate. Usually, a 3:2 pulldown is used, giving a slight uneven movement.

While common multisync CRT computer monitors have been capable of running at even multiples of 24 Hz since the early 1990s, recent "120 Hz" LCDs have been produced for the purpose of having smoother, more fluid motion, depending upon the source material, and any subsequent processing done to the signal. In the case of material shot on video, improvements in smoothness just from having a higher refresh rate may be barely noticeable.

In the case of filmed material, as 120 is an even multiple of 24, it is possible to present a 24 fps sequence without judder on a well-designed 120 Hz display (i.e., so-called 5-5 pulldown). If the 120 Hz rate is produced by frame-doubling a 60 fps 3:2 pulldown signal, the uneven motion could still be visible (i.e., so-called 6-4 pulldown).

Refresh rate is a number that specifies how many times per second the image on your TV changes. With most TVs it"s 60, though it"s rare you"ll ever see a TV with that number listed. Instead, manufacturers use different technologies, such as

Higher refresh rate claims with numbers like 120, 240 and higher are common, but not always accurate. In fact, no matter what number you see listed with a 4K TV, no 4K TV has a native panel refresh rate higher than 120Hz. As we"ll explain, though, a number higher than 120Hz doesn"t necessarily mean the claim is false.

Effective refresh rate means the TV refreshes its image at a lower rate, but might appear to have similar motion resolution as a TV with an actual higher refresh rate.

Let me start with the terms you"ll see on various TV makers" marketing materials and web sites. Each one calls the TVs motion handling capability something different, and many don"t even mention the term "refresh rate" or use "Hz" at all.

LG"s web site lists the panel"s native refresh rate up front. On TVs that have a 120Hz refresh rate it simply says "120Hz Native," while with 60Hz models it lists "TruMotion 120 (60Hz Native)."

Samsung is better than it used to be about this, albeit not as transparent as LG. The 4K TVs and 8K TVs on its site list a "Motion Rate." This is, generally, twice the native refresh rate. So Motion Rate 240 indicates a native refresh of 120Hz while Motion Rate 120 means a 60Hz refresh. In the least expensive of their TVs, a Motion Rate of 60 means a 60Hz refresh.

For most of its 2021 TVs Sony doesn"t list a number on its website, instead it just says "Motionflow XR." On some, however, it lists a number along with the native refresh: "Motionflow XR 240 (native 60 Hz)" and "Motionflow XR 960 (native 120 Hz)."

Vizio used to list an "Effective Refresh Rate" on its web site, which was just double the native refresh rate. For 2021, however, none of its TVs use that term as far as we could find, and most don"t list any refresh rate spec. The bottom line? All of

For the most effective increase in motion resolution, and compatibility with next-gen gaming consoles" best video output modes, you need a native 120Hz refresh television. That said, it is possible to have some improvement in motion resolution even with a 60Hz TV if it uses some other feature, like backlight scanning or black frame insertion, that improves motion resolution.

So are these higher refresh numbers just another "more is better!" marketing ploy? Not entirely. Higher refresh rates can reduce motion blur in LCDs and OLED TVs.

Interestingly, this blur is largely created by your brain. Basically, your brain notices the motion, and makes assumptions as to where that object (or overall image) is going to be in the next fraction of a second. The problem with LCD and current OLED TVs is that they hold that image there for the full 60th of a second, so your brain actually smears the motion, thinking it should be moving, when in fact it"s just a series of still images.

The motion blur we"re talking about here, despite coming from your brain, is caused by how the television works. This is separate from whatever blur the camera itself creates.

Both of these techniques are what manufacturers use to come up with their "effective refresh rate" numbers. For example, a TV with a 60Hz refresh and a scanning backlight might claim to have an effective refresh rate of 120. A TV with a more elaborate BFI mode, and frame interpolation, might have a claimed effective refresh rate of "540." There"s no transparency in how companies determine their "effective rate" numbers, but there is at least more consistency than there used to be.

It"s also possible these features, when enabled, are bothersome over time. Some people are especially sensitive to a flickering backlight, so you might need to turn these features off. If you"re concerned about that, or notice motion blur, it"s best to find a TV that actually has a 120Hz refresh rate.

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It’s natural for anyone shopping desktop monitors to be swayed by size, shape, resolution and color quality. But depending on your business needs, you may also want to consider a less flashy feature: the monitor’s refresh rate.

Refresh rate is the frequency at which the screen updates with new images each second, measured in hertz (cycles per second). The content may look steady on the display, but what the viewer can’t see is how fast the content is changing — up to 360 times a second. The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the visual quality.

Super high monitor refresh rates aren’t all that important for office workers focused on lighter computing like word processing, spreadsheets and emails. But in more visual professions like creative production and game development, a high refresh rate for monitors is invaluable.

The standard refresh rate for desktop monitors is 60Hz. But in recent years, more specialized, high-performing monitors have been developed that support 120Hz, 144Hz and even 240Hz refresh rates, which ensure ultra-smooth content viewing, even for the most demanding visual processing needs.

Just buying a high refresh rate monitor doesn’t mean the display quality will magically improve. The monitor’s refresh rate reflects the maximum rate at which the display can change the visuals. What happens on the screen depends on the frame rate of the output — the number of video frames that are sent to the display each second.

A 120Hz monitor has obvious benefits, though, for modern gaming platforms that animate at 100 fps or higher. A high refresh rate helps the screen keep pace with the high-twitch inputs of players and translate them into super smooth actions on screen.

When refresh rate and frame rate are mismatched, it can result in something called screen tearing. If the computer’s graphic card is pushing out more frames than the monitor’s refresh rate can handle at a given moment, users may see two half-frames on the screen at once, bisected horizontally and slightly misaligned. In short, it doesn’t look good. Games are usually configured to automatically match the PC’s graphics capabilities to avoid tearing, but running high-action visuals more slowly than intended makes for a compromised viewing and playing experience.

Response time — the time it takes for a pixel to change color — also plays a role in refresh rate. A monitor can only refresh as quickly as the LCD display can make those rapid-fire color shifts.

Particularly for fast-paced visuals, higher refresh rates and faster pixel response times reduce ghosted visuals, and ideally eliminate them. With slower tech, a high-pace action sequence may come with trailing images that result in softer, even blurry on-screen visuals.

The appeal of high refresh rates is obvious for at-home gamers looking for a responsive, hyperrealistic playing experience. And this leisure use is part of a vast global industry. SuperData reported that the video gaming industry generated roughly $140 billion in 2020, up 12 percent from $120 billion in 2019. Statista estimates there are now more than 3 billion gamers worldwide.

In the U.S. alone, the video game industry employs 220,000 people across all 50 states, according to the Entertainment Software Association. That’s a lot of game developers, graphic artists and playtesters working in front of monitors, most of them in need of optimal visual quality and speed at their workstations. While 60Hz refresh rates may work fine for people in finance and human resources — and even the clerical side of gaming companies — people on the visual and testing side need at least 120Hz to do their jobs well.

And it’s not just gaming. While the film industry has long produced movies at 24 fps, that frame rate is a relic of times when there were different technical restraints on cameras and projection, so a faster frame rate required more expensive film. The 24 fps standard has stuck around largely because that’s what the public is used to. Today, filmmakers are increasingly pushing frame rates as high as 120 fps.

High-performance monitors with high refresh rates come with obvious visual improvements, but monitor upgrades in general bring a broader range of business benefits.

High refresh rate monitors with high response times also tend to come with other premium features, such as full support for USB-C connections. With a single cable, the user can connect their PC to a monitor that functions as a USB hub for peripheral devices. This negates the need for expensive and often clunky docking stations, and can significantly reduce the number of cables at each workstation. In addition to tidier, streamlined workspaces, this also reduces the demand for IT support. With fewer connectors and devices, you tend to get fewer problems.

Around the workplace, anyone in a visually creative role will see immediate benefits from a higher refresh rate. And while those in non-visual roles probably won’t see any difference, the key may be futureproofing.

When IT and information systems (IS) teams plan capital purchases, they need to look several years ahead for potential technical requirements down the road. While high-refresh monitors may have a defined user community right now, it’s likely more use cases and worker needs will develop. Monitors with low refresh rates can’t get better, but higher-refresh monitors can serve your display needs both now and in the future.

Many of our favorite TVs and monitors today boast displays with high refresh rates that promise smoother onscreen action and a sharper picture. The latest iPhone 13 Pro models can reach a 120-Hz refresh rate, as can several phones running Google"s Android OS.

High refresh rates are also talked about a lot in gaming, where fast reactions and instant onscreen updates can mean the difference between victory and failure.

All content on your display is made up of individual still frames (photos) shown in sequence at a very high speed. The refresh rate is measured in hertz (Hz), and it dictates how often the frame can change. A refresh rate of 120 Hz allows a new frame to be displayed up to 120 times every second. A 60-Hz display can only refresh the screen 60 times per second. And you can guess how many times a 90-Hz screen can refresh.

It’s important to note that the potential benefit of a high screen refresh rate is limited by the frame rate of whatever is onscreen. With videos or video game graphics, this is expressed as frames per second (fps). Movies typically run at 24 frames per second because it"s a theatrical standard, while many games can run at up to 120 fps.

Just to confuse you more, manufacturers sometimes list the touch response rate (or touch sample rate) for touchscreen displays, which is also measured in hertz. This number relates to how often the touchscreen scans for a touch from your finger. The higher the touch response rate, the faster it responds to your touch.

A higher refresh rate allows a phone"s display to keep up with gaming action and reduces motion blur on video, but it can also make navigating around the interface feel more responsive than it would on a display with a lower refresh rate. Games look less choppy during frenetic action, video footage of fast-paced sports action appears smoother, and any jerkiness scrolling a long web page is reduced. To get the full benefit of a high refresh rate, you also need a high frame rate, and ideally, the two match.

The cost is often your battery life. Refreshing the image on a display more times per second requires more battery power. Processing power is also needed to run graphics at a higher frame rate. Processors have improved enormously, but battery life is still limited on smartphones. For that reason, most phones with high refresh rates do not run at the highest rate all the time. This includes some of the new iPhone Pro 13 models, which have an “adaptive” 120-Hz refresh rate, which scales up at select times, when you"re more likely to notice the difference.

Higher refresh rates first came to smartphones with the gaming-focused Razer Phone, but manufacturers like Samsung, OnePlus, and Google have since adopted them in flagship devices like the Galaxy S21 series and the Pixel 5.

When comparing 60 Hz vs 75 Hz refresh rates, the answer is quite clear: 75 Hz is better. A refresh rate measures how many times a screen can update in one second. Higher refresh rates are associated with better video quality, reduced eye strain, and even improved gaming experiences. And while 60 Hz has been the bare minimum for decades, a 75 Hz monitor offers an accessible upgrade.

Refresh rate measures how many times a display can update the image on the screen. Video is actually a series of still images that change so quickly that they give the illusion of movement. The faster these images change, the smoother the video appears to be.

A screen’s refresh rate is measured in hertz (Hz), which is a unit of how many times something occurs in one second. Therefore, a refresh rate of 1 Hz shows a new image on the screen every second. A refresh rate of 75 Hz shows 75 separate images in a single second.

Generally speaking, a higher refresh rate results in smoother and more lifelike video so long as the frames per second match. (Ever wonder how many images per second the eye can process?It turns out it’s up to 500 Hz.)

Measured in frames-per-second (fps), frame rate also describes how many images get displayed on the screen each second. The difference lies in the source: refresh rate is determined by the display while frame rate is determined by the computer’s processors.

To fully take advantage of a monitor’s high refresh rate, it’s important that the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) and graphic processing unit (GPU) are able to produce enough frames per second. And on the other side, a high-performance graphics card would only go to waste if paired with a monitor with a slower refresh rate.

Sometimes more is just more. When it comes to refresh rates, a higher rate results in smoother video, less strain on the eyes, and even improved performance in competitive gaming. Even if that jump is a modest increase from 60 Hz to 75 Hz, there is a noticeable improvement in media quality.

So much of modern work deals with viewing and processing data. A smoother display makes a huge difference both in eye health and quickly understanding what’s on screen. A faster refresh rate makes it a much nicer work experience by reducing motion blur in text, graphics, data, and even your cursor.

Higher refresh rates result in smoother, more realistic on-screen media. More images per second can also significantly reduce motion blur, which can make a huge difference in video quality and gaming experiences.

Clearer and more natural motion on screen can go a long way towards better eye health. In fact, at lower refresh rates you may even start to notice aflicker, which can cause a wide range of vision problems and challenges.

A big part of effective ergonomics – for work and for play – is a high-quality display. A higher refresh rate on your monitor goes a long way towards protecting your eyes. Even a small difference like 60 Hz vs 75 Hz can make a huge difference over time.

When it comes to monitor refresh rates, bigger is definitely better. However, 60 Hz represents a bare minimum while anything over 120 Hz is more appropriate to more demanding users. More modest screens with a 75 Hz refresh rate offer a middle ground.

When comparing the performance of two custom gaming PCs, we often look at the frame rates each computer is capable of producing in a certain game at the same resolution and graphics quality. Frame rates are measured in FPS or Frames per Second. Most people know that higher FPS is better, but let’s clear up some common misconceptions with FPS and refresh rates.

First, what is a frame and what determines the frame rate? A frame is a single still image, which is then combined in a rapid slideshow with other still images, each one slightly different, to achieve the illusion of natural motion. The frame rate is how many of these images are displayed in one second. To produce, or render, a new frame your CPU and GPU work together to determine the actions of the AI, the physics, positions, and textures of the objects in the scene to produce an image. Then your GPU cuts this image into pixels at the resolution you set and sends this information to the display. The more powerful your CPU and GPU, the more frames they are able to generate per second.

Your monitor or display is where refresh rates come in. Refresh rate is measured in frequency (Hz) which is the number of times per second your monitor can redraw the screen. A refresh rate of 85Hz means that your display can redraw the entire screen 85 times in one second.

Does that mean that your frame rate is limited by your screen’s refresh rate? No; they are two separate things. Remember that FPS is how many frames your custom gaming PCs is producing or drawing, while the refresh rate is how many times the monitor is refreshing the image on the screen. The refresh rate (Hz) of your monitor does not affect the frame rate (FPS) your GPU will be outputting. However, if your FPS is higher than your refresh rate, your display will not be able to display all of the frames your computer is producing, so although the refresh rate doesn’t technically limit the frame rate, it does effectively set a cap.

It’s also important to remember that even if your gaming PC is capable of generating 90 FPS in your favorite game at your preferred settings, and even if your monitor supports 90Hz, 120Hz or more, you could still be capped by the lower refresh rate capabilities of the ports on your graphics card and display. Read our blog post on DisplayPort vs HDMI vs DVI vs VGA to learn about the pros, cons and limitations of the different types of connections. For example, some gaming monitors feature 120Hz refresh rates, but have HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.4. This means that you can only take advantage of the 120Hz refresh rate if your use DisplayPort; you’ll be stuck at 60Hz if you use HDMI.

Frame rate is typically used as a gaming benchmark for measuring the performance of hardware, drivers, games and APIs like Vulkan and DirectX. In this case the monitor’s refresh rate doesn’t matter because the frame rate is just used as a number to measure the gaming performance. A higher frame rate is better. However, when you’re actually playing a game, the display’s refresh rate does effectively limit the frame rate – if you have an 80hz display and your computer is capable of outputting 120 FPS, your screen will still only be able to show 80 different images per second.

To prevent screen tearing, you can enable a feature called Vertical Synchronization, or VSync. This tells your GPU to synchronize its actions with the display, which forces it to render and send a new frame when the monitor is ready to redraw the screen. This does limit your framerate exactly to the refresh rate. For example, if your refresh rate is 60Hz, VSync will cap your framerate to 60 FPS. If your GPU is capable of producing higher frame rates than the VSync cap you can take advantage of its leftover capacity to increase the resolution, draw distance, or other graphics quality settings. If your graphics card can’t outpace the refresh rate of your display then enabling VSync won’t help much. You may be able to lock your GPU into a lower frame rate, like 30 FPS, that would match up with your monitor. Common display refresh rates include 120hz, 60hz and 30hz, and there are all divisible by 30 so you won’t get screen tearing, but you may get stutter, as each frame will be on the screen for a couple of cycles.

If your monitor and graphics card both in your customer computer support NVIDIA G-SYNC, you’re in luck. With this technology, a special chip in the display communicates with the graphics card. This lets the monitor vary the refresh rate to match the frame rate of the NVIDIA GTX graphics card, up to the maximum refresh rate of the display. This means that the frames are displayed as soon as they are rendered by the GPU, eliminating screen tearing and reducing stutter for when the frame rate is both higher and lower than the refresh rate of the display. This makes it perfect for situations where the frame rate varies, which happens a lot when gaming. Today, you can even find G-SYNC technology in gaming laptops!

AMD has a similar solution called FreeSync. However, this doesn’t require a proprietary chip in the monitor. Instead, FreeSync relies on the DisplayPort’s Adaptive-Sync specification, which is a royalty-free industry standard. The difference between them is that in G-SYNC, the proprietary module in the monitor handles the work of communication between the devices. In FreeSync, the AMD Radeon driver, and the display firmware handle the communication. AMD has demonstrated that FreeSync can work over HDMI, but it requires custom drivers from AMD and the monitor’s manufacturer. Currently G-SYNC only works with DisplayPort, but that may change. Generally, FreeSync monitors are less expensive than their G-SYNC counterparts, but gamers generally prefer G-SYNC over FreeSync as the latter may cause ghosting, where old images leave behind artifacts. However, this may change as both technologies are relatively new.

The Hisense U8H matches the excellent brightness and color performance of much pricier LCD TVs, and its Google TV smart platform is a welcome addition. But it’s available in only three screen sizes.

The Hisense U8H is the best LCD/LED TV for most people because it delivers the performance of a much pricier TV yet starts at under $1,000, for the smallest (55-inch) screen size. This TV utilizes quantum dots, a full-array backlight with mini-LEDs, and a 120 Hz refresh rate to deliver a great-looking 4K HDR image. It’s compatible with every major HDR format. And it’s equipped with two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 inputs to support 4K 120 Hz gaming from the newest Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Add in the intuitive, fully featured Google TV smart-TV platform, and the U8H’s price-to-performance ratio is of inarguable value.

And thanks to Hisense’s inclusion of Filmmaker Mode, it’s easy to rein in the U8H’s brightness abilities for a more-subdued and filmic experience in a darker room. Our measurements revealed that this mode has a very accurate white balance, mostly accurate colors (green is a bit oversaturated, but not egregiously so), and a perfect “dark room” gamma (which controls how quickly the video signal transitions from dark to light). Additionally, the TV’s 120 Hz refresh rate means it can play Blu-ray discs at 24 fps without the judder that’s usually present on TVs with 60 Hz refresh rates.

The TV’s higher refresh rate also reduces motion blur in faster-moving sports and allows for smoother, more stable motion in games. Two of the four HDMI inputs support 4K gaming at 120 Hz. The U8H measured low input lag while playing in 4K resolution, and Hisense’s helpful GameZone setting in the picture menu allowed me to confirm the presence of 120 Hz playback and variable refresh rate during games.

The onboard Google TV smart platform is another feather in this TV’s cap. As usual, however, it will be much more satisfying to use if you have a Google account and already take advantage of Google’s connected services, like Photos. The experience of navigating the TV’s smart features—scanning QR codes to sign into apps, using the onscreen keyboard, and browsing your Google Photos to set a photo as a screensaver—was very satisfying in terms of responsiveness and speed. Powering on the TV and booting into an app took just seconds. The included Bluetooth remote is also equipped with a handy “Hey Google” button, allowing you to pull up Google’s assistant and use voice commands to search for content or set a reminder. If you have multiple users with their own Google accounts, you can designate separate profiles (attached to a Gmail account) so that each user can customize the experience to their liking, as well as access their own Google Drive or Photos. While some reviewers have reported instances of momentary freezing while using the U8H’s platform, I didn’t personally experience any instances of slowdown that were egregiously worse than with any other smart-TV platform.

In terms of design, the Hisense U8H is not as svelte as our upgrade pick, but it’s plenty sturdy and doesn’t look or feel cheap. Two narrow, metal feet jut out from beneath the panel and steadily hold the TV. They can be attached in two separate spots, either closer in toward the middle of the panel or out toward the edges, to account for different-size TV stands. The feet are also equipped with cable organization clasps—a nice touch for keeping your TV stand free of cable clutter. Though the TV is primarily plastic, its bezels are lined with metal strips, providing a bit more durability in the long run. I moved it around my home, and it was no worse for wear, but we’ll know more after doing some long-term testing.

The Hisense U8H has some difficulties with banding, or areas of uneven gradation, where transitions that should appear smooth instead look like “bands” of color (sometimes also called posterization). Like many current 4K HDR TVs, the U8H uses an 8-bit panel rather than a 10-bit panel, which affects the color decoding and color presentation process. This is usually relevant only with HDR video and games. When playing games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, I saw a few instances where the content wasn’t rendered correctly and displayed ugly splotches of color on the screen. However, this almost always occurred during static screens (such as a pause menu or loading screen); I rarely spotted it during actual gameplay. Hisense has stated that it would address the problem in a future firmware update, but at the time of writing it was still present. This is a flaw that may give dedicated gamers pause, but we don’t consider it to be a dealbreaker for most people.

Although the UH8 TV has four HDMI inputs, only two of them are fully HDMI 2.1–compatible. And one of those is designated as the eARC input (intended as an audio connection for a soundbar or AV receiver connection). So if you’re pairing an external audio system with the U8H, you may have only one input remaining that can support HDMI 2.1 features like 4K 120 Hz playback, variable refresh rate, and auto game mode; this could be a dealbreaker if you own more than one current-gen gaming console. If you’re in that boat, you may want to splash out some extra dough for our upgrade pick. Additionally, folks using pre-HDMI source devices—like the five-cable composite connector with green, red, blue, and red/white audio inputs—should be aware that this TV requires an adapter to allow those devices to connect, and an adapter is not included in the box.

Finally, like most TVs that use vertical alignment (VA) LCD panels, the U8H has a limited horizontal viewing angle, which may be a bit annoying if you’re hoping to entertain a large crowd. Our upgrade pick uses a special wide-angle technology to address this.

If you’re watching in a darker room and want the most accurate picture you can get—preserving the director’s intent—select the U8H’s Filmmaker Mode as your picture mode. In a brighter room, we recommend the Theater Day picture mode. In either case, you should go into the backlight settings, disable the automatic light sensor, and set the backlight to your personal preference. This is true whether you’re watching SDR or HDR content.

With all the advantages and disadvantages, lcdds are essentially a good choice for those who see the TV starting from 4k smartphone. Nowadays, in addition to the wholesale models, lcdds are essentially a good option for those that don ’ t have the capacity of a device.