High Refresh vs. High Dynamic Range vs. High Resolution
The modern monitor market is marvelous: 240Hz refresh, resolutions of 4K and beyond, and latterly eye-popping HDR capabilities. But all three in a single monitor? That’s an awfully big ask. And it’s an awfully big ask because upping the refresh and resolution, or adding HDR (high dynamic range) capabilities, all increase the required bandwidth. You simply can’t have the highest available resolution, the fastest refresh, and HDR all in one monitor. Something’s gotta give. But what should that be? It all depends on your chosen remit.
ROUND 1
Games
Pumping more pixels has always been a problem when it comes to gaming. Higher resolutions put more strain on your graphics subsystem. And that means lower frame rates. When nearly all monitors ran at 60Hz, however, that often didn’t matter. If a higher resolution dropped your frame rate from 120fps to 70fps, you wouldn’t actually be able to see the difference on a 60Hz panel.
But now that screens with refresh rates up to 240Hz are available, it’s a whole different ball game. Even today, the graphics card that can drive all the latest games at well beyond 100Hz at 4K doesn’t exist. So, if you want superslick and responsive gaming, you want a high-refresh panel with a middling pixel count. Something like 1440p, in other words, rather than 4K.
As for HDR, game support is limited. But where it is available, HDR can look fugging fantastic. So, if you’re looking for a long-term solution, an HDR panel is certainly appealing. A true HDR panel will, of course, guarantee strong performance in terms of contrast and color depth. That’s a plus for SDR or standard dynamic range games, not just titles that support HDR.
Winner: Refresh rate plus a little HDR
ROUND 2
Productivity
It’s surprising how sweet high refresh rates are even for the simplest of dayto-day computing activities. Everything feels more responsive, immediate, and natural at higher refresh rates.
Despite that, we wouldn’t prioritize high refresh over resolution for productivity. More often than not, more pixels are of greater value for getting stuff done. For starters, you can see more, which is not only more practical and ergonomic, in the sense that you can see more of a given webpage, or view multiple pages and documents at the same time, but also critical when it comes to the likes of editing images and video at full resolution. For that, there’s no substitute for more pixels. Of course, high resolution at any screen size also results in a tighter pixel pitch. That means a sharper image, crisper fonts, and all that jazz.
If more pixels are nice, what about HDR? It’s not an obvious win for productivity, especially as most HDR monitors do horrible things to SDR content when running in HDR mode. On the other hand, a monitor capable of one of the more demanding HDR standards will have an inherently high-performing panel.
Winner: Resolution
ROUND 3
Movies and Video
You could argue that 4K content is thin on the ground, as the majority of what you might call legacy content isn’t available in 4K, but pretty much all major new movies are now released at that resolution. Likewise, streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon are making more and more 4K content.
You could say the same of HDR, but more so. Only a subset of 4K content is available in HDR. However, a screen with HDR support is more capable, thanks to greater contrast and color performance. That makes SDR content look better, too. A screen with higher resolution than the source content doesn’t help at all. Indeed, interpolating a low-res image on a higher resolution panel typically delivers a worse result than rendering the same image at native resolution.
As for high refresh rates, they’re irrelevant to nearly all video content. Few movies are captured in anything even approaching high frame rates. So-called High Frame Rate, or HFR, movies—like TheHobbit— are just 48fps. Streaming content recorded at 60fps is becoming more common, but either way, a standard 60Hz monitor has a sufficiently high refresh rate.
Winner: Resolution and HDR
ROUND 4
Value
For reasons that elude us, high refresh monitors remain very pricey. We suspect that the fact it’s perceived as a gaming-centric feature encourages screen makers to price their high refresh models up in the stratosphere. Whatever, it makes for poor value for anything but a dedicated gaming panel.
On the other hand, 4K monitors are now genuinely affordable. We’re not just talking about 4K screens with the cheapest of TN panels. In the last year, the number of 4K models with VA and IPS panels for around $300 has increased dramatically. A 32-inch 4K monitor with a good quality panel from a decent brand for $350? Now that is an appealing value proposition. Other than serious gamers, anyone on a limited budget will get much more overall bang for their buck going for more pixels than higher refresh rates.
HDR is trickier. Much depends on how you define HDR. True HDR displays with local dimming or, even worse in terms of cost, an OLED panel, remain very expensive. Pseudo HDR monitors with wider color spaces, though, aren’t necessarily much more expensive, but they aren’t necessarily much better than a conventional SDR display.
Winner: Resolution
ROUND 5
Virtual Reality
OK, VR feels pretty dead, what with the Oculus Rift 2 being canceled, and the founder of Oculus VR, Palmer Luckey, recently implying that people didn’t want VR even if it’s free.
But it’s still an intriguing technology, and one we can’t entirely dismiss. But of refresh, resolution, and HDR, which is the most important for virtual reality displays? The short answer is all of ’em. But some are more important than others. The most important is refresh rate. You need at least 90Hz to have a solution that feels reasonably responsive. Without that, the experience is sluggish, unconvincing, and even nausea-inducing.
Resolution matters, too. With the display filling your field of view, you need a lot of pixels to avoid the screen door effect—in fact, more than any commercial VR headset offers. As for HDR, that too would be a requirement for a truly convincing VR world. It isn’t quite as important for enabling a good basic experience, though, and it’s probably the least problematic in terms of implementation in a VR context. So, odds are, by the time the res and refresh barriers are hurdled, HDR will be an easy add-on.
Winner: Refresh then resolution