Three gaming monitors have been announced at Computex that are pushing the limit on refresh rates. The fastest of these shown off at the giant computing trade show in Taipei is the Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG, a 1080p display with a 610Hz refresh rate. Both MSI and Acer have released 1440p displays with 500Hz refresh rates – a spec you’d be hard pressed to drive, even with an RTX 5090 and multi-frame generation.
Acer’s model is the Predator X27U F5, which is not only fast but also has a QD-OLED display, so it’ll have incredible color accuracy. Currently, this monitor is only launching in Europe and China, starting at €899. I have reached out to Acer, and it said that the monitor will be coming to the US eventually, but wouldn’t share a price on it. Acer attributes this delay in pricing to Tarriffs, and it’s actively negotiating its pricing with retailers. The company will announce the US price closer to the X27U F5 hitting store shelves, but given how expensive tech products are getting here, I wouldn’t hold my breath that it’ll be affordable.
MSI is also launching a QD-OLED panel with the 27-inch MPG 271QR X50, though it didn’t share pricing information. What’s interesting here isn’t necessarily the fast, beautiful panel, but a cool AI feature. According to a report from PC Gamer, which went hands-on with it, the monitor has a tiny sensor at the bottom of the display that’ll sense when you move away. It then sends that data to an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) so the display automatically turns off, starting its burn-in protection.
Burn-in protection is common in any OLED display, especially in a gaming monitor that’ll have static images just sitting there over most of its lifespan. The monitor shuts off periodically to refresh the pixels and prevent burn-in. While having it be AI-based is a little spooky, it’s at least better than the OLED protection popping on when you’re in the middle of something.
Do Gaming Monitors Need to Be This Fast?
It’s a little wild that we’re getting three monitors that are this fast, but the Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG obviously takes the cake. Even at 1080p, a 610Hz display is incredibly fast, even in a time where we have Nvidia’s multi-frame generation boosting frame rates higher than ever. Even in a game like Marvel Rivals, you’re going to need an RTX 5090 to hit that frame rate, and that’d require multi-frame generation, which is generally not advised in competitive games as it adds a little bit of latency.
You’d need more than just a powerful graphics card with this kind of refresh rate; you’d need one hell of a CPU, too. You see, at these super-high frame rates, your CPU needs to be powerful enough to keep your graphics card fed with data. Technology like Nvidia Reflex and frame generation mitigates that to a point, but when you start getting up around 600-ish fps, you’re going to need a powerful CPU regardless.
However, if you were able to render a game that quickly – especially if you didn’t have to use frame generation to get there – you’d get incredibly low render latency, which is a huge deal for competitive games. After all, there’s a reason why competitive Counter-Strike 2 players run the game on the lowest settings, even though the game can run on a potato: A higher frame rate means less input lag, and that can be the difference between life and death. Whether or not that’ll be worth the doubtlessly expensive price tag for most people is another question.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
