AOC reveals a 1,000Hz gaming monitor — but do you really need anything like that high a refresh rate?
A rate of knots
- AOC has revealed the Agon Pro AGP257FT, a 24.5-inch Full HD monitor
- It has a native 1,000Hz refresh rate
- Expect this gaming monitor to debut in Q1 2027, but we don't have a price yet
AOC has announced a new gaming monitor which runs at a native 1,000Hz refresh rate.
TechPowerUp posted the press release for the Agon Pro AGP257FT, which is a 24.5-inch Full HD IPS monitor offering a response time of 0.3ms (grey-to-grey) and DisplayHDR 400 support.
As mentioned, it runs natively at 1,000Hz, meaning you get that refresh rate out of the box (and there's no dual mode here, where a monitor has two refresh rate settings with different resolutions, dropping the latter to achieve the faster rate).
You get 1,000Hz at 1920 x 1080 resolution, with an overclock option to push the refresh rate slightly further to 1,050Hz.
The AGP257FT is an oxide-based 'Fast IPS' panel that has 20-zone local dimming and 90% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut (and 99% coverage for sRGB), with a brightness of 450 nits.
The monitor supports Nvidia G-Sync and has an adjustable stand (allowing for 150mm of range in height) with tilt, swivel and pivot (complete with markings to keep a favored position).
You get two HDMI 2.1 ports along with a DisplayPort 2.1 connector and a headphone output, plus a USB hub (sporting a trio of USB-A ports). There's a headset hook here, too.
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The Agon Pro AGP257FT monitor is set to arrive in Q1 2027, with pricing still to be confirmed.
Analysis: rating the rate
Don't expect this to be a cheap monitor. With the 1,000Hz refresh rate, this is aimed at professional esports gamers, so it'll exact quite the toll on your wallet. Especially given that even monitors aren't immune to the price hikes we've seen across all sorts of tech thanks to the pressures of the RAM crisis and global geopolitical climate (affecting shipping).
Of course, do you really need a 1,000Hz screen even if you are a competitive gamer? Perhaps it's justifiable from some viewpoints, but unless money really is no object with your gaming setup, it's going to be major overkill for most people.
For starters, you're not going to get 1,000 frames per second (to match that 1,000Hz refresh rate) even on esports shooters with a top-end PC – remembering that it's not just a matter of reaching or peaking at that level, but sustaining it (on average).
Okay, so it is also true that there are still benefits in terms of a smoother image with less motion blur, and less input lag, when running at 1,000Hz, even if your frames per second aren't up at that level – so this tech isn't wasted in this scenario.
Still, whether the price of these kinds of screens is worth it is, shall we say, highly debatable. Besides which, in the case of this AOC monitor gamers will argue that IPS isn't the best choice if you want motion clarity anyway, and that you'd be better off looking at, say, a 720Hz OLED (which is still a blazingly fast refresh rate).
The vast majority of gamers will be better off focusing their expenditure on the PC itself, though – and there's certainly a need for the extra money given the RAM crisis – rather than pushing out the boat for a monitor which probably only offers minor advantages in the end (unless you're actually a pro gamer).
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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