480Hz Display Panels Could Go Into Production This Year

The name AU Optronics (AUO) may not be common in households, but that doesn’t change the fact that the brand is one of the major players and manufacturers of display panels. Well, earlier at the Society for Information Display’s (SIDs) Display Week 2022, the company gave attendees a glimpse of its 480Hz display technology.

AUO’s latest panel 480Hz panels were showcased in the form of two SKUs. The first is for a 24-inch panel aimed toward desktop monitors, while the second panel is 16-inches and is aimed at notebook displays. Regardless of size, both panels had a maximum resolution of Full HD, sub-1ms response time – AUO didn’t seem to specify whether or not it was grey-to-grey scale or something else – and utilises TN panel technology.

Obviously and to state the obvious, this isn’t AUO’s first foray with high refresh rate monitor. In fact, the company was responsible for developing and providing ASUS with the 360Hz IPS panel that the Taiwanese PC brand uses with its ROG Swift PG259QN gaming monitor, which also happens to be one of the fastest gaming monitors in the world.

Interestingly enough, it’s definitely an interesting choice by AUO to use a TN panel instead of IPS, especially for gamers who value the latter panel for its wider viewing angles and better reproductions of blacks. That said, IPS also tend to be more expensive than TN Panels, so AUO’s choice of it could simply be due to a cost issue.

On another note, having such a high refresh rate may sound enticing to gamers but as it stands, there aren’t a whole lot of titles right now that are capable of sustaining frame rates above 480 fps, and at Full HD resolution for that matter. By our count, CS:GO and Doom Eternal are two such capable titles, although the latter title is heavily dependent on what GPU is being used.