Asus have made the world's first 360Hz gaming monitor

It's CES over in Las Vegas right now (that's the Consumer Electronics Show to give it its full and proper name), where hardware manufacturers from around the world offer up their latest gadgets and gizmos to give us a glimpse of all the cool things they've got planned for 2020. This year, the hot topic seems to be mad gaming monitors, and Asus have just gone and shown everyone up by announcing the world's first 360Hz one, those mad fools.

At the moment, monitor refresh rates top out at 240Hz, but the appropriately named Asus ROG Swift 360Hz will be able to spit out 50% more frames per second than its 240Hz rivals when it arrives later this year. That's quite a lot of frames if you ask me. You might even say it's too many.

Indeed, RPS Mechanic Alex Wiltshire delved into the subject of just how many frames the human eye can actually see for PC Gamer back in 2017, and research suggests it all becomes much of a muchness once you hit 200Hz, which calls into question just how benefit you'll actually get from those extra 120 frames. I've yet to see the monitor in person, so I can't say for sure just how smooth 360Hz looks compared to 240Hz, but as someone who struggles to see the difference between 120Hz and 240Hz, I'm not sure 360Hz is going to make things any better.

There's also the extra wrinkle of whether your graphics card is even going to up to the task of hitting 360fps as well. After all, many GPUs still struggle to hit 240fps in most of today's games unless you whack the settings right down. It's less of a problem for older games such as CS:GO and competitive esports-y things like Fortnite and League of Legends, but if you fancy hitting 360fps in anything else then you're probably going to need one hell of a GPU to pull it off. Still, I'll be putting this 24in, 1920x1080 Nvidia G-Sync monitor through its paces as soon as review samples are available, so watch this space for more bonkers 360Hz impressions.

The ROG Swift 360Hz monitor wasn't the only gaming screen Asus announced at this year's CES, either. They also lifted the lid on the ROG Swift PG32UQX, their latest 32in, 4K, Nvidia G-Sync Ultimate HDR display. This is no mere rehash of their previous ROG Swift PG27UQ monitor, either. Whereas that had an impressive 384 backlight zones for its good-looking HDR, the PG32UQX has a whopping 1152 of them. Add in a peak brightness of a positively eye-searing 1400cd/m2 (the PG27YQ topped out at 1000cd/m2) and a 144Hz refresh rate and this is one serious HDR display.

Goodness knows how much it's going to cost. After all, the PG27UQ still sets you back around £1700 / $1400 at time of writing, so I wouldn't be surprised if the PG32UQX came in closer to £3000 / $3000, if not significantly more, when it launches later this year. I will let you know as soon as I know more.

For more news from this year's CES, check out our CES 2020 tag.