Alienware’s 500Hz desktop gaming monitor could be the precise world-first

If you’re having a robust sense of déjà vu, you’re not alone — final January, I introduced you phrase of the primary prototype 500Hz gaming monitor, and Asus introduced what ought to have been the very first 500Hz gaming monitor practically seven months in the past. But as we speak, I’m right here to let you know in regards to the Alienware AW2524H, which may nicely be the primary 500Hz gaming monitor you’ll be able to really purchase.

See, we hadn’t heard a phrase in regards to the Asus monitor between its unique announcement and this very morning — when Nvidia namedropped a “ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP 540Hz 24” 1080p G-SYNC show with Reflex” whose website isn’t yet live as I write these phrases. But I digress.

Why would you need to purchase a 500Hz gaming monitor? You won’t! I imply, except you have already got the reflexes of a hummingbird and can pay any worth to verify expertise doesn’t maintain you again. That’s as a result of the response time distinction between a 360Hz panel and a 500Hz one is lower than one-thousandth of a second — 0.78 milliseconds, to be actual — and solely in video games the place your graphics card or chip can really ship 500 frames per second. When Alienware put 480Hz screens in its 17-inch gaming laptops, DigitalTrends discovered they couldn’t actually drive most games that fast.

But when you do have your coronary heart set on a 500Hz gaming monitor and have the desktop to energy it, the 24.5-inch Alienware could be the plain choose. Not solely has it seemingly overwhelmed the Asus to having a launch date — it’s due out in China on February eighth and March twenty first in North America — it’s a quick IPS display screen slightly than a TN panel, which ought to imply higher colours and viewing angles by far.

Otherwise, it’s a G-Sync display screen with an anti-glare coating, two HDMI 2.1 ports alongside its major DisplayPort 1.4 connector — you solely get 240Hz over HDMI — 4 5Gbps USB-A ports, customizable RGB backlighting, a pull-out headset hanger, and a pair of three.5mm audio-out jacks along with Nvidia’s Reflex Latency Analyzer.

The draw back, as you would possibly count on for an extremely high-refresh-rate display screen, is that you simply’re restricted to 1080p decision, which interprets to only 90ppi on a monitor this dimension. Also, whereas in all probability not an enormous deal, you need to know that the 500Hz refresh fee is with the panel’s overclocked. It’s nominally a 480Hz panel, similar to many 165Hz panels are nominally 144Hz ones.

If you don’t like its included stand for some purpose, there’s a regular VESA 100 x 100 mounting sample, and it additionally comes with a USB-C to DP cable when you plan to attach a laptop computer. Lastly, there’s a DisplayHDR 400 certification, although, in our expertise, that merely means it will probably attain 400 nits of brightness, not that it has any quantity of HDR value writing dwelling about.