AOC has announced a new high-end gaming screen set to hit the highs of a 144Hz refresh rate in its latest 24-inch monitor, the g2460Pqu. We'll see it hitting the e-shelves later this month and with the latest high refresh rate TN panels we've seen recently - creating serious competition for the cheaper end of the IPS panel market - I've got a feeling the g2460Pqu could be a great gaming option.
The super-high 144Hz refresh makes everything buttery smooth on-screen - there really is a tangible difference moving up from the base-rate of 60Hz. The only difficulty is going back to a 60Hz screen once you've used a 120Hz+ panel for any length of time.
The move towards these impressive TN screens, with their high refresh rates, is the only lasting legacy of the failed introduction of stereoscopic 3D gaming - it gave us excellent quality TN panels that we otherwise wouldn't have seen in the gaming market.
Going up against the likes of the VG248QE, AOC is competing directly with Asus' headline-grabbing 144Hz spec - something we haven't seen from other monitor manufacturing competitors. And given that AOC is looking for the screen to hit the shelves at around £250 it's coming in a lot cheaper than the Asus panel.
The only slight snag is BenQ's excellent XL2411T. It may not have the key 144Hz stat, but it's rated at 120Hz out of the box and during testing I was able to tweak some graphics settings to push the BenQ screen right up to those heady highs. That screen's retailing at around £230 right now.
But the AOC g2460Pqu has got some impressive specs to back it up other than just that refresh rate. It's got a 1ms response time - something the budget IPS panels simply can't beat right now - and that's arguably more important for gamers than wider viewing angles and some prettier colour reproduction. It's also got a full height-adjustable tilt stand and more display inputs than you can shake a graphics card at.
I'll have the panel in the labs very soon to put it through its paces face-to-face.
