Gaming monitors have spent the last decade getting faster. What started with 120Hz and 144Hz displays gradually moved to 240Hz, 360Hz and eventually 500Hz and beyond. Samsung is now taking that race into four-digit territory with the new 27-inch Odyssey G6, which can reach a refresh rate of up to 1,100Hz.
It is an impressive number, but it also raises a more interesting question: how much faster do gaming monitors actually need to become? For competitive players chasing every possible advantage, the answer may still be “faster.” For everyone else, the difference is becoming far less obvious.
1,100Hz comes with an important trade-off
The Odyssey G6 does not run at 1,100Hz at its full resolution. Instead, Samsung uses a Dual Mode system that allows players to choose between different combinations of image quality and speed. At QHD resolution, the monitor can reach up to 600Hz. To unlock the headline 1,100Hz refresh rate, the resolution drops to HD.
Samsung is clearly targeting competitive FPS players who may be willing to sacrifice sharpness if it means getting the lowest possible latency and the smoothest motion. The monitor uses a 27-inch Fast IPS panel and has a rated 1ms response time. Samsung says the G6 will become available globally during the second half of 2026, although pricing has not yet been announced.
That combination gives the G6 two very different personalities. At QHD and 600Hz, it is still an extremely fast monitor with a relatively sharp image. At 1,100Hz, it becomes a much more specialized piece of hardware built around speed above almost everything else.
Why refresh rate still matters
Refresh rate determines how many times a display can update its image every second. A 60Hz monitor can display up to 60 new frames per second, while a 144Hz monitor can display up to 144. The jump from 60Hz to 120Hz or 144Hz is immediately noticeable for most people. Moving a mouse cursor feels smoother, scrolling becomes cleaner and fast games respond more naturally.
Going from 144Hz to 240Hz can also be noticeable, particularly in competitive games. Beyond that point, however, the improvements become progressively smaller. At 60Hz, a new frame appears roughly every 16.7 milliseconds. At 144Hz, that falls to around 6.9 milliseconds, while 240Hz brings it down to roughly 4.2 milliseconds. A 1,100Hz display can theoretically show a new frame approximately every 0.9 milliseconds.
That is remarkably fast, but the difference between 240Hz and 1,100Hz is not going to feel anything like the difference between 60Hz and 240Hz. The numbers keep increasing dramatically while the visible improvement becomes more subtle. For professional esports players, subtle can still matter.
Your PC has to keep up too
Owning a 1,100Hz monitor does not automatically mean you are seeing 1,100 unique frames every second. The computer has to render them.
Reaching frame rates anywhere close to 1,100 FPS is unrealistic in most modern games, even with extremely powerful hardware. The monitor therefore makes the most sense with competitive titles that are intentionally designed to run at very high frame rates. Games such as Counter-Strike, Valorant and other esports-focused shooters tend to prioritize responsiveness and relatively lightweight graphics, but even then, reaching four-digit frame rates consistently will require a powerful system and very low graphical settings.
That makes the Odyssey G6 a very different proposition from a typical gaming monitor. A 144Hz or 240Hz display can improve the experience across a huge range of games. A 1,100Hz monitor is designed around a much narrower scenario where every millisecond matters and visual quality can become secondary.
The resolution switch is probably the smartest part
The most useful feature may actually be Dual Mode rather than the 1,100Hz number itself. Competitive players do not necessarily want to use the same display settings for every game. Someone might prefer QHD resolution when playing a cinematic single-player title, then switch to a lower resolution and much higher refresh rate for a competitive shooter.
Being able to choose between QHD at up to 600Hz and HD at up to 1,100Hz gives the monitor more flexibility than a specification sheet focused entirely on speed would suggest. It also reflects a broader change in gaming monitors. Manufacturers increasingly seem to recognize that resolution and refresh rate do not always need to be fixed characteristics.
Instead, the display can adapt depending on whether the player values detail or speed. That approach may ultimately be more useful than simply increasing refresh rates every year.
Samsung is experimenting at both ends of the gaming market
The G6 is only one part of Samsung’s new Odyssey lineup. At Gamescom 2026, the company also introduced a 49-inch Odyssey OLED G9 with a 360Hz Dual QHD panel and a 42-inch curved Odyssey OLED G7 with 4K resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate.
Those products are interesting because they move in the opposite direction from the G6. Instead of chasing the highest possible refresh rate, they focus more heavily on screen size, image quality, OLED contrast and immersion.
Samsung is effectively acknowledging that there is no longer one definition of a high-end gaming monitor. Some players want maximum speed. Others want a huge OLED panel and better image quality. And some will inevitably want both.
Are we reaching the point of diminishing returns?
The Odyssey G6 feels like a milestone, but it may also represent the moment when refresh rates start becoming difficult to use as a meaningful selling point for ordinary players. Moving from 60Hz to 144Hz transformed PC gaming. Moving from 144Hz to 240Hz refined it. The difference between 500Hz and 1,100Hz is much harder to describe without talking about competitive gaming, frame times and latency measurements.
That does not make the technology pointless. Extremely high refresh rates can reduce motion blur and make rapidly moving objects easier to track. Competitive players operate in an environment where tiny differences can matter, and technologies developed for that audience often become cheaper and more accessible over time.
The first 144Hz monitors were once considered specialized gaming hardware too. Today, displays with high refresh rates are common even on inexpensive laptops and smartphones.
1,100Hz is probably not meant for most people yet
If you currently have a 60Hz gaming monitor, buying a good 144Hz or 240Hz display will almost certainly make a much bigger difference than worrying about whether 1,100Hz is the future. Even players already using 360Hz or 500Hz displays are unlikely to suddenly find their current monitors unusable.
The Odyssey G6 is better understood as a demonstration of how far display technology can currently be pushed. Samsung has built a monitor capable of refreshing its image more than one thousand times every second. A few years ago, that would have sounded excessive even by esports standards. Now it is becoming an actual product.
Whether players can take meaningful advantage of all that speed is another question, and independent testing will matter once the monitor becomes available. Still, there is something interesting about watching a familiar specification cross a completely new threshold.
The refresh-rate race is clearly not over. The bigger question is whether our eyes, our games and our computers can keep up with where monitor manufacturers want to take it next.
