Acer Releases Predator Monitors With 200Hz+ Refresh Rates Into The Wild

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By Michael Justin Allen Sexton
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Acer announced three new Predator displays that boast extraordinarily high refresh rates of 200Hz or higher. They also feature support for G-Sync to improve your gaming experience.

The Acer Predator XB252Q and Predator XB272 displays are nearly identical to each other. Both have a native resolution of 1920x1080 and have a maximum refresh rate of 240Hz. They also have support for G-Sync to avoid graphical anomalies, such as screen tearing, and a low 1ms response time.

In order to achieve refresh rates this high, Acer opted to use TN panel technology inside of these displays. These screens can’t be viewed from at quite as extreme angles as IPS or PLS panels, but  images will look correct up to 170 degrees in all directions, so using TN panels shouldn’t cause any issues.

The displays are also able to display 100% of the sRGB color spectrum. This only amounts to 72% of the NTSC color gamut, but it should still look fairly colorful.

Acer equipped these displays with two 2W DTS speakers to give you a basic audio experience while gaming. They also have a four port USB 3.0 hub built-in. The only aspect in which these displays really differ is their size. The Predator 252Q measures 24.5 inches and the Predator XB272 is 27 inches.

The third new Predator display Acer introduced is the Predator Z301CT. This display has a slightly lower 200Hz refresh rate, but it is larger at 30 inches, and it has a higher resolution of 2560x1080. It is also has a curvature of 1800R to give you an immersed feeling while gaming.

The Predator Z301CT also lags behind the other displays somewhat in that it has a 4ms response time. As it is based on a VA panel, it has wider viewing angles of 178 degrees in all directions. It also has slightly more powerful 3W speakers.

Like the other two displays announced today, the Z301CT supports G-Sync and it has a four port USB 3.0 hub. Unlike the other two, however, Acer equipped the Z301CT with Tobii eye tracking hardware to allow you to control your system with eye movements.

All three displays are expected to be released in February. See chart below for pricing information.

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Acer Predator Displays 2016
Model252QXB272Z301CT
Size24.5-inch27-inch30-inch
CurvatureFlatFlat1800R
Resolution1920x10801920x10802560x1080
Refresh Rate240Hz240Hz200Hz
Response Time1ms1ms4ms
Panel TypeTNTNVA
Viewing Angles (HxV)170 x 170 Degrees170 x 170 Degrees178 x 178 Degrees
G-Sync SupportYesYesYes
Tobii Eye TrackingNoNoYes
Speakers2x2W2x2W2x3W
Color100% sRGB72% NTSC1.67 Million Colors100% sRGB72% NTSC1.67 Million Colors100% sRGB72% NTSC1.67 Million Colors
StandTilt: 5-20 DegreesSwivel: +/- 45 DegreesHeight Adjustment: 4.5-InchesPivot: 90 DegreesTilt: 5-20 DegreesSwivel: +/- 45 DegreesHeight Adjustment: 4.5-InchesPivot: 90 DegreesTilt: 5-25 DegreesSwivel: +/- 25 DegreesHeight Adjustment: 4.7-Inches
Other FeaturesNvidia ULMBAcer DarkBoostBlueLight ShieldFlicker-less TechnologiesGameView OSD Navigation KeyNvidia ULMBAcer DarkBoostBlueLight ShieldFlicker-less TechnologiesGameView OSD Navigation KeyAcer DarkBoostBlueLight ShieldFlicker-less TechnologiesGameView OSD Navigation Key
MSRP$549.99$679.99$899.99
Michael Justin Allen Sexton
Michael Justin Allen Sexton is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers hardware component news, specializing in CPUs and motherboards.
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10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hdmark
    i think there is a small typo in the title unless these monitors are INCREDIBLY fast :D

    these do look awesome though. im wondering what the people who say humans cant see faster than 60hz anyway will say about these monitors
    Reply
  • RomeoReject
    OK, legitimate question: Is going beyond 144Hz beneficial to anyone? As it stands, I already can't really see the difference on any display north of 100Hz, 200 vs 144 sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell yourself you notice, while secretly admitting you don't notice.
    Reply
  • hdmark
    19099341 said:
    OK, legitimate question: Is going beyond 144Hz beneficial to anyone? As it stands, I already can't really see the difference on any display north of 100Hz, 200 vs 144 sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell yourself you notice, while secretly admitting you don't notice.

    im going to say yes. but most likely will only be the enthusiasts. I bet professional games will see the difference instantly and use it to their advantage, where my mom doesnt see any real difference between my 1440p and my 1080p
    Reply
  • grimfox
    Through training the human Eye can be trained to pick up faster and faster movements. There was a team of softball players that put different stickers on a softball and ran the balls through a pitching machine. They then called out the different stickers and increased the speed of the pitching machine until they could accurately identify the stickers on 100mph fast balls. Given that, I wouldn't say it's impossible to see those types of changes in refresh rate but I do wonder if something like that truly provides a useful advantage.
    Reply
  • RomeoReject
    19099455 said:
    19099341 said:
    OK, legitimate question: Is going beyond 144Hz beneficial to anyone? As it stands, I already can't really see the difference on any display north of 100Hz, 200 vs 144 sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell yourself you notice, while secretly admitting you don't notice.

    im going to say yes. but most likely will only be the enthusiasts. I bet professional games will see the difference instantly and use it to their advantage, where my mom doesnt see any real difference between my 1440p and my 1080p
    I'll be completely honest, unless I'm sitting up close, I'm like your mama: Can't spot the difference at more than three feet out. Though I use a TV, might be different if I were up close with a monitor.
    Reply
  • dbdarrough
    I wonder what the G-Sync range is.
    Reply
  • sillynilly
    For mere mortals this is a silly Hz - you won't notice the difference. At least your 1080 will render fine for these poopy 1080 panels (just my opinion!)
    Reply
  • Kewlx25
    Human vision does not see in frames. It's a continuously integration of visual input where the brain is really good at finding anomaly.

    For example. What you see is only integrated into your consciousness about 15 times a second. You may think that's 15fps, but it's not. The brain integrates many visual cues and adds meta-data to objects seen, like direction of movement. If an object jumps more than a small percentage of its size, your brain will see the same object as two different objects. This means if a rocket goes flying across your screen, it can't move more than a few pixels at a time without confusing your brain into thinking there are multiple rockets.

    In laboratory experiments, humans can see into the thousands of frames per second and can recognize a pulse of light as short as a few femto-seconds (0.000000000000001 seconds) in pitch-black aka 1,000,000,000,000,000 fps

    FPS/HZ does not apply to human vision. We don't see in discrete amounts, we have a more analog vision.
    Reply
  • Kewlx25
    The eye actually has an amazing ability to detect resolution at the center, and horrible everywhere else. If you hold out your thumb at arm's length, your eye could discern 6 megapixels crammed into your thumbnail. This averages to about 256 megapixels for your entire vision per eye. But everything outside of that thumbnail sized spot only has a total resolution of 1 megapixels.

    In theory, a 7 megapixel display with 6 of the megapixels packed into a small spot in the center is all you need. But your eye can move and is constantly moving. There is already some DX12 implementations to take advantage of this and only render the center quarter of your display at 4k and the rest at 1080p. Even better would be eye tracking with very low latency to dynamically move high resolution section of your monitor.
    Reply
  • alidan
    19099341 said:
    OK, legitimate question: Is going beyond 144Hz beneficial to anyone? As it stands, I already can't really see the difference on any display north of 100Hz, 200 vs 144 sounds like the kind of thing you'd tell yourself you notice, while secretly admitting you don't notice.

    going from 60 to 144 I could see the difference in everything from moving files to games,

    going from 144 to 240 would likely be as big a jump, but nothing new can be pushed that far, or rarely can be pushed that far.

    normal desktop use would probably be amazing, as so with displaying images in games, as it would push the image faster reducing the perceived input lag, free and gsync also do this, but having a monitor do it just because its so damn fast is better as its less crap that can go wrong at any given time.
    Reply