The world’s first 280Hz monitor has been spotted at a retail site in Taiwan

Asus VG279QM
(Image credit: Asus)

If you spent a boatload of money building a no-compromise gaming PC, good news: Asus apparently has a monitor that will do your hardware justice. It's the TUF Gaming VG279QM, and according to the marketing materials, it delivers up to a 280Hz refresh rate.

That is incredibly fast. As in, there is no other monitor I'm aware of that matches that spec—the next closest is 240Hz. There are about a dozen gaming monitors currently that reach that refresh rate. It's not entirely clear if the advertised 280Hz refresh rate is the native measurement on VG279QM or if that comes by way of overclocking the panel. My money's on the latter. Either way, it's an impressive metric.

To actually utilize a 280Hz refresh rate to its fullest, you'll need a PC that can keep up. Even if you pair the best graphics card (GeForce RTX 2080 Ti) with the best CPU for gaming (Intel Core i9-9900K), that's a tough ask for a lot of games. Where it will most likely come into play is in less graphically demanding esports games like, say, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The native refresh rate on this 27-inch monitor is 1920x1080, so that works in favor of that goal.

(Image credit: Asus)

Asus is using an in-plane switching (IPS) panel on this monitor. It has a rated 1ms gray-to-gray response time, G-Sync and adaptive sync support, 99 percent coverage of the sRGB color space (which should translate into better image quality than a typical TN panel), and a max brightness of 400 nits. As it pertains to that latter metric, the VG279QM bears the DisplayHDR 400 certification badge for HDR content.

Connectivity options include two HDMI 2.0 ports and a single DisplayPort 1.2. Aura Sync RGB lighting is part of the package as well.

TFTCentral spotted this monitor on Taobao. I haven't been able to find it at any retail sites in the US or Europe (or anywhere else). However, I have reached out to Asus for information on when this display will be more widely available and how much it will cost, and will update this article when I hear back. [EDIT: Asus tells me the VG279QM will be available in the US starting the week of January 13, 2020.]

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

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