144 FPS Gaming - Rerez

When I play video games I liked to pick a monitor or TV that works for the experience that I'm playing at the time. Specifically if I'm playing a retro video game console I'll usually go for something like a PVM that has a really high clarity but works just great for older video games at lower resolutions. When you move into something with higher resolutions like 1080p or 720p it's usually better to have an HDTV on your hands. Now I recently did the jump to 4k resolutions with a new TV and a monitor that I've been using to play 4k games. But Samsung just sent in a new monitor called the CFG70 and it isn't 4k but it's got something that's a hell of a lot better. Now like I said the monitor isn't 4k, it's coming in at 1080p, but you also have a couple of other nice features on here like a 3000:1 contrast ratio so you can get those really nice dark blacks, 16.7 million colors and a 1ms response time so when you're playing games you get that instant response time that a lot of gamers really want. It also has an LED light bar underneath the monitor that blinks and strobes to the sound effects that are generated from the games you're playing. It's kind of ridiculous but if you want something like that this monitor has it built in.

One of its most signature features though is its quantum dot display which gives you a wider range of colors and I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal but when I put this directly up against my current 4k screen it was insane. The difference is just that great. It looked way better and every game I played just stood out a lot more. Now all those specs are nice but I really didn't care about that. When Samsung contacted me about this monitor originally and they wanted us to review it I was kind of hesitant because to be honest I had a 4k monitor why do I want to jump down to a 1080p screen. Well this is the reason why. This monitor has a 144 Hz refresh rate. That means you can play at 144 frames per second. I know that sounds incredible but it really does work. Now right off the bat no video game console you have in your collection right now will go to 144 frames per second because most of the games are limited to 60 frames per second due to the fact that most TVs can really only sponsor 60 frames. But if you've got a PC with enough horsepower behind it you'll be able to play games at that really high frame rate. Folks once you've done 144 frames per second 4k doesn't even matter. The best way I can describe what this monitor looks like is imagine a typical game you would play at 60 frames per second then double it. Now imagine that on top of it being doubled you have an additional 24 frames per second. That's what 144 frames per second gaming is like. You've got a lot more information and a lot more detail happening. In fact it is so weird to keep motion blurring on when you're turning around when you have such a high frame rate but you'll probably want to turn it off because when you turn it off you see every single detail on the turn whenever you move back and forth really quick in a game like a first-person shooter. Since this is the first game I've ever played at home at 144 frames per second it really does make the entire experience almost seem surreal. High resolution gameplay at 4k is impressive in its own right but when you're playing with more frames it almost seems like there's a window to another world sitting in front of you and I know that sounds kind of stupid but believe me higher frame rates are probably more impressive than getting higher resolutions. At least that's how I feel now ever since I've used this monitor.

Frame rate aside and the fact that I actually do like the Samsung CFG70 I don't want to say it's the most perfect monitor in the world. It's got a couple of things here and there that I'm not a big fan of. At 24 inches you really just don't need a curved display I mean the screen just isn’t that large. Curved screens are really good for large monitors but I feel for small ones they just don't really have an effect. I can ignore the curved screen because it really doesn't matter too much but the dual hinged arm for this monitor was something that I really wasn't a big fan of. The hinged arm doesn't really lay flat enough against the back of the monitor effectively making it thicker than most of the CRTs I’ve ever used. So if you're like me and have a small desk you might find this monitor really doesn't fit well on it. But outside of those two criticisms I feel like this is the best monitor I have ever gamed on. So as you can see I really like the Samsung CFG70 but I have to be honest it's not for everyone. If you've got a PC that's capable of going to 144 frames per second you might want to get something like this. That higher frame rate makes a big difference while playing video games and personally I prefer the higher frame rate to the higher resolutions because it's just way more evident how much information you're getting on your screen. But if you've got a home console this is probably not something you want to get. You're going to be limited to getting 60 frames per second and the 1080p resolution is great and all but a lot of consoles out there right now are starting to support 4k resolutions. So I kind of look at it this way if you've got a home console and you're playing games in your living room or whatever go for the higher resolution. But if you're going to be playing PC games and you are a PC gamer go for the highest frame rate possible because once you've seen 144 frames per second there's no going back.