LG just announced the first 1000Hz gaming monitor, and I have questions. Specifically: can human eyes even tell the difference?

The LG UltraGear 25G590B is a 25-inch, 1080p display that refreshes 1000 times per second. That's double the previous record of 500Hz, quadruple the "high-end gaming monitor" standard of 240Hz, and roughly seventeen times faster than the 60Hz monitors most people grew up with.

Here's what we know about human vision: most people can perceive improvements in smoothness up to around 200-240Hz, especially in fast-paced competitive games. Beyond that, the benefits become increasingly subtle. Some professional esports players claim they can feel the difference at 360Hz or 500Hz, though controlled studies are scarce.

So what's the point of 1000Hz? LG is betting on two things: motion clarity and input lag. Higher refresh rates do objectively reduce the time between when you click a mouse and when that action appears on screen. At 1000Hz, we're talking about 1-millisecond frame times. At 60Hz, it's 16 milliseconds. For professional esports players competing at the highest levels, that might matter.

But here's the catch: to actually utilize 1000Hz, your PC needs to generate 1000 frames per second. At 1080p, with modern competitive games like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, that's technically achievable with high-end hardware. But you're not playing Cyberpunk 2077 at 1000fps anytime soon.

The monitor is also 25 inches, which in 2026 feels almost comically small. The gaming industry spent a decade convincing everyone they needed 27-inch or 32-inch displays. LG went backward because at 1000Hz and 1080p, larger sizes would make the pixel density noticeably poor.

I suspect this monitor will find a small but devoted audience among professional esports players and the kind of hardware enthusiasts who need to have the fastest everything. For everyone else, the jump from 240Hz to 1000Hz will be imperceptible. The technology is impressive. The question is whether anyone needs it.