CES 2020 kicks off today, bringing with it a host of PC gaming announcements from Asus, Nvidia, Lenovo and LG. While most of the news is pretty standard, there are a few surprises too – including the first 360Hz gaming monitor, ray tracing and DLSS support for a popular recent game and a truly impressive 4K Mini LED monitor. While most of the hardware announced today is high-end, you can expect the features that debut here to trickle down to more affordable models in the months to come, making this a good chance to see how the PC gaming industry will progress in 2020. Here are the highlights thus far.
Let’s start with that 360Hz monitor. It’s called the Asus ROG Swift 360Hz, and unsurprisingly it can draw 50 per cent more frames per second than a 240Hz monitor, making for a more fluid experience. Of course, generating that many frames requires both a high-end PC and a relatively old game – think esports titles like Counter-Strike, Overwatch or League of Legends. The monitor runs at 1080p – no surprises there – and supports full-fat G-Sync all the way up to 360Hz. Other specifications are missing at present, including the panel type, pixel response times and so on, suggesting that this is some distance away from being a finished retail product.
Former Counter-Strike professional Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert is one of the few outside Nvidia to have gone hands-on with the monitor. He appears in a promotional video released by the company, espousing the increase in visual clarity the higher refresh rate provides and how that can translate into a competitive advantage – something that we’ve also demonstrated at 144 and 240Hz. A lot of questions still remain, especially with no release date or price available, but we look forward to seeing whether 360Hz makes sense even for the small proportion of gamers that play competitive games at a high level and how Asus and Nvidia have achieved this higher refresh rate without visual artefacts like ghosting. This is definitely one we’ll look forward to testing – and perhaps it’ll earn a coveted spot in our round-up of the best gaming monitors.
WORLD’S FIRST 360Hz Monitor – Powered by NVIDIA G-SYNC Watch on YouTube
Another interesting high-end option also comes from Asus, and it’s the ROG Swift PG32UQX. The first Mini LED monitors debuted just a few months ago, and this looks to be one of the first gaming-focused examples (alongside the Acer Predator X32 which uses the same panel). Mini LEDs are, as the name suggests, miniaturised versions of the normal LEDs that provide the backlighting for most monitors. The smaller size allows the screen’s brightness to be adjusted in a larger number of zones, increasing contrast across an image and ameliorating the halo effect you can sometimes spot in screens with local dimming.
The use of Mini LEDs means that the PG32UQX is able to have three times as many backlight zones as its predecessor, the (admittedly smaller) PG27UQ, with the total count reaching 1152. Peak brightness has also been raised substantially, to 1400 nits, meaning the display is able to grab the rare DisplayHDR 1400 certification. That should result in an excellent HDR experience, whether you’re watching video or playing games. The latter will be aided by the monitor’s 144Hz refresh rate, which is a must-have for fast-paced and competitive games. Of course, all of this tech is sure to cost a pretty penny, so expect a price point in excess of £3000/$3000 once the display is released later this year.