'There's just a sense of pure enjoyment in watching Overwatch or Quake Champions zip along.'
Refresh rate, resolution, black levels, panel size: pick two. That's been the PC monitor buyer's dilemma for several years now, since we collectively realised that yes, playing at a higher refresh rate does actually make you better at Counter-Strike. MSI's latest panel, bearing the catchy moniker
, aims to at least address the most common tradeoff in modern gaming panels: refresh rate for colour quality. Whereas the majority of high refresh rate panels are VA or TN screens with limited viewing angle and shallow colours, MSI's latest is built around an IPS panel, with all the inky blacks and rich colours that technology brings with it. Traditionally IPS has been slower to the party since it's costlier to manufacture high refresh rate panels, but evidently enough of us are sold on 120Hz and beyond.
Way beyond, in fact. This is the first 360Hz monitor I've played on, and I must admit to being sceptical about whatever marginal gains I might see in performance. 60Hz to 120Hz is transformative, but 120Hz to 360Hz? Surely one's gaming performance doesn't increase exponentially. And don't eyes only see 60 fps anyway?
It turns out that while that performance gain might not exist on a linear curve, 360Hz does look and feel smoother than 120Hz, and the decreased ghosting of any targets in your shooter of choice does make them that bit easier to connect with. If your aspirations for online competition are pretty serious, that's really all you need to know.