Asus has announced the world's first 610 Hz gaming monitor, and a 'Super TN' panel is the price you

To most, seem like a thing of days gone by. Trading ultimate speed and price for mediocre colour accuracy and poor viewing angles, it makes you ask, "Do I really need that much speed?" According to , that answer is yes, as it has just unveiled a lightning-fast 610 Hz refresh rate monitor.

In fairness, professional gamers will always take speed over pretty visuals any day, so they're likely to be pleased by what's in store for them. Shown off at the ground floor [[link]] of , in Taipei, Taiwan, Asus' new ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG is a 24.1-inch FHD monitor with that aforementioned 610 Hz refresh rate (while in OC mode) and a 0.1 ms response time. It also offers an input lag as low as 0.8 milliseconds.

It does this all with what Asus calls a 'Super TN' panel—an evolution of TN technology. If you don't know what a TN or Twisted Nematic monitor is (I wouldn't blame you), it's a type of monitor now mostly used by professional gamers [[link]] as they offer super-fast refresh rates and response times, and formerly just the preserve of rubbish budget monitors.

The viewing angle of TN panels is usually worse than their competitors, and colour accuracy takes a hit too. Asus claims Super TN looks better than a traditional TN panel, bridging the gap between it, IPS, VA, and OLED.

Our own Jacob, who is on the Computex show floor and saw the monitor in person, told me, "The response seemed decent from the UFO test, but it had some obvious yellowing to the white colours as far as I could tell."

It's worth noting that this is a short test, and he was only there for a few minutes, so it's not a definite judgment on the panel. He does, however, say that TN panels have come on quite a lot in recent times, and though there's a yellow tinge to it, Jacob does say the picture quality seems fine so far.

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Picture quality isn't why [[link]] people buy TN monitors, though, and this one comes with ELMB2 (Extreme Low Motion Blur), which helps reduce motion blur for a much cleaner view, and the panel is reportedly much brighter than previous TN monitors. As well as all of this, it is enhanced with ROG's AI technology with AI visual boosts, alongside dynamic shadow enhancements, and dynamic crosshair boosts.

This is all intended to make the monitor much easier to understand for professional-level gamers who need to make out and comprehend complex scenes in very short amounts of time. The difference between a particle effect or a grenade and a head popping out of cover can be the difference between a win and a loss.

To put my cards on the table, I am not, in fact, a professional gamer, so this panel will likely never quite see its potential running or at an uncapped fps on my home rig. However, it certainly has some super impressive stats.

To put it into context, MSI has just announced its own , and , though both will cost a pretty penny. Asus hasn't given a price that we can find as yet for its 610 Hz panel, but it's unlikely to be a budget option, either.

We expect to see slowly increasing refresh rates across the board over the next few years, though getting above 500 Hz will still be a bit of a rarity, as will the graphics hardware capable of regularly doing so.