Two and a half years on since Asus showed off the world’s first 360Hz gaming monitor, they’re back at it again with the world’s first 500Hz gaming monitor, revealing it during Computex 2022. Dubbed the Asus ROG Swift 500Hz, it has a 500Hz refresh rate as its name implies, making it over eight times faster than your typical 60Hz display.
According to Asus, the ROG Swift 500Hz is a 24.1-inch, FHD display using a new ‘eSports TN’ panel, or E-TN for short. TN panels have fallen out of favour in recent years, but traditionally they offered some of the fastest refresh rates in the scene before rival technologies such as IPS and VA caught up with it. With their new E-TN panels though, Asus says it will offer 60% better response times too compared to regular TN panels for better speed and clarity.
They haven’t just done this alone either. Asus had partnered up with Nvidia for this, incorporating Nvidia G-Sync technology into the monitor along with Nvidia Reflex Analyzer too. These together will allow for a vibrance mode which allows more light to pass through the LCD crystals, perhaps improving on TN’s old issues with brightness and viewing angles. Nvidia Reflex Analyzer in particular allows users to measure the end-to-end system latency when using the display together with a compatible mouse and graphics card.
Nvidia also showed just how much smoother 500Hz is with a new demonstration video comparing 144Hz, 240Hz and 500Hz displays while playing Valorant. Using a super slow motion Phantom VEO 640S camera to record each display, they shot and placed each display side-by-side to let you see just how much smoother Valorant is at 500fps, while also having less ghosting mid-game.
It’s clear though that the ROG Swift 500Hz isn’t for your average gamer. Asus themselves highlights that it will give you a leg up over your opponents in eSports titles in particular such as Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, FPS shooters that competitive gamers will be able to appreciate high refresh rate displays. If you don’t need that many frames, you might be better off with a quality IPS display at higher resolutions such as a 1440p monitor instead.
