120hz vs 60hz. Argue the case?

wunkley

wunkley

wunkley

Soldato
Joined
27 Jul 2004
Posts
3,887
Location
Yancashire
I'm in the market for a new monitor soon. The problem is, I know what I want, but it hasn't been made yet. This is my dream:

- The soon to launch LG 34 inch 21:9, as it is with the 3440x1440 IPS panel, but made by Dell

- with Gsync

- with a 120 refresh rate........I guess?

Now, it's the last one that's my sticking point. Having never gamed at 120hz, is the difference really night and day?

I feel perfectly happy at 60fps in games, and I won't settle for less. That's why I bought 2 780 Ti's! But, am I missing out? How can I find out what it feels like when I don't know anyone with a 120hz screen, and can think of no way to test one out in real life.

Can anyone describe the difference. Is it as marked a difference as 60fps is to 30 fps in gaming, as that is hugely noticeable to me.

If I can be convinced that 60hz is still good enough for me, and I still have the GPU power to lock games at 60fps so I don't NEED Gsync, then the soon to release LG 34 21:9 er could well be mine!

Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
I tried 120hz, went back to 60hz and haven't noticed the difference, now someone else can come in and say that 60hz "is a slideshow" to them and you'll be no closer to an answer

Hows that?
 
Well IMO I think I notice 60 vs 85 but I hear people say no difference.

If I I would goto a retail shop and try out the difference in hz and compare for yourself. It appears for some people the tearing/or something you would notice but somepeople dont so save your money if you don't.
 
Yes difference is night and day even when on the desktop it looks so smooth, that was from my little experience with an 120hz panel. I did return it as I prefer Image quality of IPS over tn panels.
 
60Hz just feels laggy to me now, even simple things like opening drop down menus on a webpage/in Windows UI elements appear laggy. In games it's just night and day. Sadly not everyone can see the benefit though, some people still think you can't see past 30 FPS :p

The best way to describe it however would be more "fluid". I would never willingly go back to 60Hz now even for IPS panels and such.
 
Can't stand the rubbish black levels on my 144hz Benq, yet still choose it over my Dell IPS because motion is so much better for gaming.
 
It will differ person to person and even then you only really notice how "bad" 60Hz is after spending awhile getting used to 120Hz.

Even if everyone in here posted about how it was like night and day (and for me it is) you might never notice the difference yourself.
 
The only problem with 60Hz screens is getting one with bad circuit latency and high G2G (the specsheet usually is totally wrong, you have to look at reviews on the internet).

Personally I put a good quality IPS with about 20ms overall lag (circuits+g2g) over a 120Hz gaming screen. I've played on both, can notice a small difference only if I play with both side by side and that simply does not outweigh the washed out colours of TN. The thing is, a high quality gaming screen from BenQ will cost you 80% of the price of a 1440p IPS screen with good specs, therefore it is a bad choice to buy a TN screen for that much. 120Hz will matter only for competitive shooter gaming.

I think I can give you a simple example. Play a game of counter strike or LoL or Dota with 50ms latency, then play another one with 60-65ms. If you can feel the difference and you feel like you play better on 10ms lower latency, you might want to also go for the 120Hz screen. Personally I can see the difference when I play with 40-50ms at my house and 120ms+ somewhere else, but I can't see the difference between 50 and 60 ms.
 
Last edited:
Kaynar said:
The only problem with 60Hz screens is getting one with bad circuit latency and high G2G (the specsheet usually is totally wrong, you have to look at reviews on the internet).

Personally I put a good quality IPS with about 20ms overall lag (circuits+g2g) over a 120Hz gaming screen. I've played on both, can notice a small difference only if I play with both side by side and that simply does not outweigh the washed out colours of TN. The thing is, a high quality gaming screen from BenQ will cost you 80% of the price of a 1440p IPS screen with good specs, therefore it is a bad choice to buy a TN screen for that much. 120Hz will matter only for competitive shooter gaming.
Click to expand...

BenQ's IMO are bad TNs - very bright and vivid to try and make up for not being IPS I think with more subtle finer detail and color accuracy quite lacking if you've got an eye for it.

I've found other TN panels to have much better overall image quality and the possibility to get much more pleasing results from calibration. I was always quite happy with my Samsung 2233rz post calibration - unfortunatly could see the FRC dithering and banding on color gradients with close inspection - but didn't buy it for image editing use, when calibrated it was possible to get really nice colors from it, gorgeously deep blacks, eye pleasing whites and a nice sharp image which was very pleasing for gaming use, if it wasn't for the dithering and view angles (which IMO are a non-issue for purely gaming) you'd never know it was a TN.
 
Last edited:
Rroff said:
It will differ person to person and even then you only really notice how "bad" 60Hz is after spending awhile getting used to 120Hz.

Even if everyone in here posted about how it was like night and day (and for me it is) you might never notice the difference yourself.
Click to expand...

This is actually a good point. You will notice the inferiority of something only if you spend a good amount of time with something superior to it.
 
There and back again and there again just for the giggles...


I've been down this route. I went from a 24" monitor to a BenQ 24" 120hz. I replaced the BenQ with a Iiyama 1440p IPS a bit later because i was not happy with the benq colour settings. Next month...I bought a 27" 144 Hz Asus instead. I have the 144hz monitor for my main screen and FPS gaming and then have my Iiyama 1440p as a second monitor for other things.

Once you try 120/144hz, you will not like going back. It's difficult to describe but you do *FEEL* the difference.

As to TN being crap for colours? yes, it's not as good as the Iiyama or my iMac but honestly as long as you do your research and get a decent one, it's not all doom and gloom as a lot of people will make out.

Viewing angles, I really couldn't care if they are worse, as I'm sitting in front of my monitor.

Hope this helps.
 
Its the reason why I have multiple panels on my desk - currently a Samsung PLS based panel (good), Dell U2913WM (quite like it but didn't fulfill the main reason I got it for) and BenQ XL2420T (hate it - but at the time nothing else really came close for high end FPS gaming use).

Looking at getting a AOC U2868PQU to replace the Dell (Eve Online multi boxing) and replacing the BenQ with the EIZO Foris but a bit undecided on that.
 
120hz is very nice, even in general use such as windows and browsing. However I prefer the colours and quality of an IPS screen. If you play fps often i'd definitely recommend 120hz otherwise don't bother.
 
This is more of an IPS vs TN debate since most TN are 120hz+ and most IPS are 60hz.

Personally as a gamer with a bias toward FPS games and being very sensitive to blurring I can't live without a good TN panel. I have a catleap here (better than an unmodified IPS but basically not worth it for FPS games, persistence is still bad and I have tried various), an old IPS 60hz and a 144hz TN and the difference to me is night and day. I owned a FG2421 VA panel (120hz) purchased from here for a short period but it just does not compare to a good TN panel for fast / twitch gaming.
The point is that even if IPS do start to be better than 60hz the performance won't be as good.
I've used many monitors including the Samsung's and none of them compare to the Benq monitors in my experience. The colour profiles out of the box on the Benq's can be really godawful (XL2420T was particularly badly set up) but once set up they out-perform everything imo. The problem is most people rate them based on their out of the box configuration.
You have some nice cards to SLI and you are doing them a disservice by only using a 60hz monitor! The ideal solution is probably the ASUS ROG SWIFT 2560x1440 @ 120hz+ monitor that will be coming out in a few months.

tl;dr - If you like strategy / RTS / slow paced games and really want photo accurate colours go IPS / VA / PLS and 60hz, catleaps etc are OK if you can be arsed to take the time to find and modify one. If not go TN (120+) for the best responsive screen (albeit with potentially inferior colour).
If I were to buy a new monitor today I would buy a Benq Z series monitor (strobing / blur reduction). If it could wait a few months I would buy a Benq G series (gsync), or the ROG SWIFT mentioned above.

Also if its mainly for gaming, don't buy a monitor with a ridiculous resolution and expect to get 120fps even with those new GPU's

R.I.P CRT :'(
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom