BOE Demos 600 Hz Gaming Laptop Display

BOE
(Image credit: ITHome)

BOE this week demonstrated the industry's fastest display panel with a 600 Hz refresh rate, which by far exceeds that of the best gaming monitors. The panel is designed for laptops aimed at hardcore gamers who demand absolutely the highest performance, including an absurdly high refresh rate. Meanwhile, the demonstration raises more questions than answers as it is unclear how BOE managed to make such a panel work and its benefits to the end user are uncertain too.

BOE showcased the industry's first 16-inch LCD panel with a 600 Hz refresh rate with an oxide backplane technology at the World Conference on Display Industry in Chengdu, China, this week, reports IT Home citing the company's press release. The demonstration of the display panel was carried out using a laptop carrying AMD Ryzen and Nvidia GeForce RTX logotypes (more on this later). First, however, the panel was attached to the chassis using tape. A 600 Hz refresh rate is something that the range-topping best graphics cards might need to show their true potential in games like CrossFire, CS: GO, or PUBG. But it's not that easy, so let's analyze what this 600 Hz LCD panel is all about.

BOE does not disclose any specifications of the panel beyond its refresh rate. Since making high-resolution panels run at high-speed refresh rates is hard, we suggest we deal with a 1920x1080 resolution here. BOE is also tight-lipped about the kind of display panel technology its LCD panel uses with a 600 Hz refresh rate. However, considering that panels with 480 Hz and 500 Hz refresh rate use TN panels, it is a safe bet that the 600 Hz one also uses this technology. Meanwhile, what is unclear is whether this panel is a 'true' 600 Hz one or a heavily overclocked LCD with a native refresh rate of 480 Hz or 500 Hz.

In any case, whether we are dealing with a native 600 Hz panel or a panel overclocked to 600 Hz, it still needs an extremely capable display controller logic. That display controller (whether a monolithic chip or a set of chips) has to feature a high-performance image processing unit, an appropriate overdrive processor, a very fast TCON (timing controller), and a general-purpose processor that will manage the operation of the aforementioned hardware. Overdrive logic performance is essential at 600 Hz to minimize ghosting. Meanwhile, assuming that we are dealing with a panel that supports a variable refresh rate (and something tells us that we do), overdrive logic is a tricky thing here.

We do not know whether any off-the-shelf display controllers can support a 600 Hz refresh rate with overdrive. Still, Nvidia's logotype of the PC chassis may imply that the company may have an appropriate G-Sync module in the works (we are speculating). At least, the only laptop with a 480 Hz LCD comes with Nvidia G-Sync support.

Another point to consider regarding this panel is how it connects to its host system. For example, transferring an uncompressed 1920x1080 image with an eight-bit color depth at a 600 Hz refresh rate (i.e., 600 times a second) to a panel requires a usable data throughput of 37.32 Gb/s, which is a DisplayPort 2.0 with UHBR 10 territory. Meanwhile, a DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 connection offers a bandwidth of 25.92 Gb/s after factoring in 8b/10b encoding overhead.

(Image credit: ITHome)

Keeping in mind that Nvidia's graphics processors introduced to date (which include the latest Ada Lovelace-based AD103 and AD104 GPUs that will likely be used for high-end gaming notebooks eventually) only support DisplayPort 1.4, we can only wonder if the panel used two eDP 1.4 connections, employed Display Stream Compression, or used 4:2:0 color format. Using two eDP 1.4 connections requires a custom display controller and is generally expensive, whereas using DST or 4:2:0 format arguably impacts image quality.  

Of course, it will be tough to evaluate the color quality and small details when you are shown up to 600 images a second (i.e., at an up to 600 Hz refresh rate), and this is the primary purpose of this monitor — to produce an incredibly immersive experience for e-sports professionals and hardcore gamers.

When we talk about cyber athletes and demanding gamers, we certainly need to mention the benefits they might get from a 600 Hz refresh rate display. A reasonably common competition-grade 240 Hz monitor can offer a down to 4.16 ms frame time, whereas 360 Hz LCDs for serious gamers cut that by 50% to 2.7 ms. At a 600 Hz refresh rate, a frame time drops 1.66 ms, which seems like a diminishing return, to put it mildly. 

Various research concluded that most people could see between 30 and 60 frames per second, though there is no commonly agreed solid limit of how many FPS an eye can see. Assuming that professional athletes can see 60 frames per second, their frame time is 16.66 ms. Meanwhile, this seems to be enough. For example, professional badminton players can react to a hit up to 493 km/h (306.34 mph), which is quite extraordinary. Meanwhile, many badminton players say that they do not precisely follow the shuttlecock with their eyes and then assume where it ends up, but rather make guesses where it will end up based on various factors like the opponent's racket or body position. 

We doubt cyber athletes can see more frames per second than other athletes, but at extremely high FPS and with an extremely high refresh rate, they may perceive the gaming world better than their opponents with lower FPS and refresh rates.

Since we are mostly talking about e-sports professionals and competitive gamers, we are also talking about games like CrossFire, Fortnite, and PUBG that do not need the highest-end GPU and CPU to hit hundreds of frames per second. Therefore, these extreme display panels may make sense for those games and professional gamers. Perhaps, not because a 600 Hz panel will cut their frame time to 1.66 ms from 4.16 ms on a 240 Hz LCD, but because, for them, this might provide a more immersive competition experience, which might lead to better results.  

For everyone else, a higher resolution display with a 'moderate' 120 Hz or 240 Hz refresh rate based on a Fast IPS or even an OLED panel with better colors, lack of DST, and larger sizes will likely be a wiser choice. There are plenty of good gaming monitors to choose from these days. 

Yet, the demonstration of the industry's first LCD panel with a 600 Hz refresh rate certainly attracts a lot of attention to BOE and emphasizes its lead (at least as far as refresh rates are concerned) over other players.

Anton Shilov
Freelance News Writer

Anton Shilov is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • Neilbob
    My willpower isn't strong enough. I have to say it. I just do.

    Pointless, pointless, POINTLESS!
    Reply
  • ikernelpro4
    Now this is just stupid.

    600hz means nothing except higher prices to produce this nonsence.

    ------
    144hz is enough, especially considering that you have to hit 144 fps in the case of games which is questionable for notebooks and desktops already.

    Even then. 600hz (which you won't notice anyway) for what? Firefox? Explorer? Money well spent....
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    It's going to sell like hotcakes to "eSports" people though, even if it does have a garbage TN panel.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    all hail Jensen for finally, after 18 long and arduous years, has provided us with the ability to play CS:GO the way it was intended to be played: at 600 fps/600hz

    /end sarcasm
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    ikernelpro4 said:
    144hz is enough, especially considering that you have to hit 144 fps in the case of games which is questionable for notebooks and desktops already.
    in fps games you want frames when you are competitive.

    this means low resolution and settings as low as possible to make the frame rate high as possible.


    stupid, but its what some ppl do.


    i do agree its pointless to have 600 refresh rate
    Reply
  • watzupken
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    It's going to sell like hotcakes to "eSports" people though, even if it does have a garbage TN panel.
    I am not sure eSports player will be gaming a on laptop to begin with. Chasing after ridiculous refresh rate is just really for marketing, with no practicality. Problems I foresee,
    At 600Hz, it is going to kill battery life,
    At 1080p, no matter what GPU you slap on the laptop, it will be very CPU bound since mobile CPUs have a tight power limit to work with as compared to their desktop counterpart, And yet, the desktop counterparts are severely bottlenecking the RTX 4090/ 4080 at 1080p.
    So can the 600Hz be realized in real world usage, particularly for gaming? Doesn't sound like it.
    Reply
  • boe rhae
    i don't remember demoing this at all!
    Reply
  • derekullo
    While they are at it they should demo an 12" 640x480 1200 hertz monitor
    Reply
  • oofdragon
    Do you know at how many fps life happens in front of our eyes? It doesn't.. time is not a set of frames. It's not like screens will catch up to real life motion, ever. So whats up to it? Better response time? Less motion blur? Did it really matter to anyone playing Mario 64 at 30fps? Can you really beat me on CS if you are playing with a 480hz monitor and I with a 60hz IF I play better than you? I must aknowledge that a120hz does look more pleasing on a smartphone compared to a 60hz one, that means when there are 240hz models I may say "eh... I think I maybe noticed something?.. now 240hz to 480hz? Put 10 people looking at them side by side and tell which is which.... It's pointless beyond that point
    Reply
  • oofdragon
    240hz/fps is end game, no matter how you look at it; same for 4K. Today a monitor like Neo G9 is really end game. Haters will hate but if you put side by side a 1080p/60Hz Plasma next to a 4K/120hz OLED there are still people who are going to think the plasma is the better looking, these numbers means nothing in real life. If you call over your girlfriend to play Mario 64 with you on your N64 vs with a RTX3080... you think she's going to actually notice the fps difference? Sorry guys but this is NERD assumption. It's the same at photo equipment reviews the NERDS crying "my medium format stomps your 4/3".. but when you actually print it.. the girlfriend (the tech clueless) won't tell the difference, there is virtually none. Fps stalkers are the new pixel peepers of old, same waste of mental resource and just marketing e
    Reply