Which refresh rate

Although we can't see it, the TV draws a new image from the source every few milliseconds. Generally, a higher refresh rate TV results in better motion handling, but it's not always the case as there are other factors that come into play with motion. It's important that your source's frame rate and the TV's refresh rate each match in order to create smooth, stutter-free motion.

For most people, a TV with a 60Hz refresh rate is good enough since there isn't much 4k content that goes past 60 fps.

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Not sure how big of a TV you should buy? This helpful tool will make it clear for you. All content on your display is made up of individual still frames photos shown in sequence at a very high speed. The refresh rate is measured in hertz Hz , and it dictates how often the frame can change. A refresh rate of Hz allows a new frame to be displayed up to times every second.

A Hz display can only refresh the screen 60 times per second. And you can guess how many times a Hz screen can refresh. With videos or video game graphics, this is expressed as frames per second fps.

Movies typically run at 24 frames per second because it's a theatrical standard, while many games can run at up to fps. Just to confuse you more, manufacturers sometimes list the touch response rate or touch sample rate for touchscreen displays, which is also measured in hertz.

This number relates to how often the touchscreen scans for a touch from your finger. The higher the touch response rate, the faster it responds to your touch. A higher refresh rate allows a phone's display to keep up with gaming action and reduces motion blur on video, but it can also make navigating around the interface feel more responsive than it would on a display with a lower refresh rate.

Games look less choppy during frenetic action, video footage of fast-paced sports action appears smoother, and any jerkiness scrolling a long web page is reduced. To get the full benefit of a high refresh rate, you also need a high frame rate, and ideally, the two match.

The cost is often your battery life. Refreshing the image on a display more times per second requires more battery power. Processing power is also needed to run graphics at a higher frame rate. Processors have improved enormously, but battery life is still limited on smartphones. Lowering the resolution to p will result in a higher refresh rate at less of a cost to performance, as will turning off or lowering graphical settings.

As with attaining higher resolutions, the less taxing the gameplay experience is on the hardware, the easier it will be to push the frame rate high enough to see the benefits of a high-refresh rate display. This might mean adjusting the settings and resolutions of your games to find the balance that works for you. The best — and easiest — way to know what refresh rates your system can support is by playing games and seeing how they perform. Use a frame rate monitoring utility like Fraps to display your current FPS frames per second as you play.

Most frame rate monitoring utilities will have the ability to benchmark your average FPS , which keeps track of how your system performs over the course of a gameplay session. For example, your system should be outputting FPS to get the full benefit of a Hz monitor.

Games released in the same year, belonging to the same genre, or built in the same engine oftentimes have relatively similar performance requirements. If your system is struggling to achieve your desired FPS, a display with adaptive sync might be useful. Many modern displays incorporate this technology. Adaptive sync enables a display to communicate directly with the GPU so that the refresh rate of the display is synchronized as each frame is produced, even if the FPS is inconsistent.

Vertical Sync VSync is a similar feature that can often be enabled in-game. Adaptive Sync technologies and VSync can help reduce or eliminate visual artifacting like screen tearing when dealing with fluctuating frame rates. High-refresh rate monitors are available at many different refresh rates, with Hz being a considerable improvement over standard 60Hz monitors and Hz being a popular high-end option. Check out our breakdown of gaming monitors by refresh rate and resolution to learn more.

Instead, look for a monitor that offers the right combination of features for you.