Hey guys, Areha here and
today we’re going to find out if getting
a higher refresh rate display is
something you should consider paying extra
for when buying a laptop.
Most laptop displays come
at 60Hz, which essentially translates to
being able to display 60 frames per
second. Many laptops offer you the choice
to pay more to upgrade the panel to a higher refresh rate, such as 75Hz, 100Hz, or 120Hz, just as a few examples, but is this worth it? First
let’s start with an example. This laptop
here is the Metabox P650HP-G, I recently
did a full review on it if you’re interested.
While the base model
comes with a 60Hz screen, you can
optionally pay a couple hundred dollars to
upgrade to a 120Hz screen, which is what
this model here has.
I didn’t actually know it
had a 120Hz screen when I received it,
as I only have it temporarily for review
purposes, I didn’t choose the hardware.
Within the first 5 minutes in Windows and
just opening folders and installing programs,
I noticed that something was different. Everything just seemed smoother and felt nicer. Upon checking the display adapter settings, I
found that the display was running at
120Hz, cool! Prior to this I had not
used a panel over 60Hz, so I was keen to
test it out.
After installing some
games and beginning to play, I wasn’t
noticing much difference.This was
because the games I was playing with very
high settings were only just reaching the 60 frames per second mark. The graphics card wasn’t powerful enough to push any higher and actually take advantage of the high
refresh rate panel in most of my tests.
Now some games did get to
around 100 FPS, and I did lower the
graphics settings in some of the others
to push them further, but I think this
goes to show that if you want to actually
be able to reach those high frame rates
with high settings, you’ll need an equally
powerful graphics card along with your
high refresh rate display.
In this case the graphics
card is an Nvidia 1060, which while I
think performs great, is just not up to
the task of running games at max
settings consistently at 120FPS. If you
want to play on high settings and get those
high refresh rates for ultimate smoothness,
I’d suggest looking at a 1070 at the minimum, otherwise as mentioned you can play on lower settings to achieve the necessary frame rates to get the smooth awesomeness.
Yeah yeah, Obviously! I
hear you say, but is it actually worth
it in a laptop? That depends largely on
you. Do you care about higher FPS? If
you’re happily gaming along at 60 FPS
and have no issues then by all means save
your money and keep enjoying what you have.
Upgrading to a new laptop purely for a
higher screen refresh rate can be quite expensive
and is therefore hard to recommend unless
you know you need it. On the other hand,
if you’ve got the extra money to spend on
a higher tier graphics card and higher refresh
rate panel and want some of that extra smoothness,
then this is definitely something that
you should check out.
I’d only really suggest
getting the higher refresh rate on the
laptop panel itself if you’ll be doing
the majority of your gaming through that
display. For instance, if you’re going
to be gaming mostly at home, it may make
more sense for you to buy a larger monitor
with high refresh rate to plug into the laptop and then play there. Do you really need the high FPS with you wherever you go? Hopefully you can see why this depends on you and your needs, so make sure you think about these things before buying.
It’s also worth
mentioning that simply having a higher
refresh rate doesn’t stop issues like
screen tearing, to help resolve that you’d
need to look into something like G-Sync.
If you’re interested in
that checkout my is G-Sync in a laptop
worth it video, I’ll leave a link in the
video description.
Unfortunately my camera
can’t record at more than 60 frames per
second, and YouTube doesn’t currently
support video above this either, so I’m
not able to demonstrate the differences
in the video, it’s really something you
need to see for yourself.
If you haven’t tried a
panel with higher refresh rate out I’d
suggest trying it first if possible
before buying, if one of your friends
has one or there’s one in a store test
it out and see if you notice a difference.
Although I did notice the
difference on first use, it was only
after I went back to 60Hz that I was
truly able to appreciate the higher frame
rates. Is it worth the extra money? That
largely depends on you, however if you have
the money for the higher refresh rate panel,
an adequately powerful graphics card, and
will actually make use of the laptop panel
for gaming rather than an external monitor, then yes, go for it, it just looks really nice! So
what do you guys think about higher refresh
rate displays? Would you get one in your laptop? Be sure to let me know your thoughts down in the comments, and leave a like on the
video if you found it useful. Thanks for
watching, and don’t forget to subscribe
for future tech videos like this one.
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