Display Test LabCheck your Hz

120Hz vs 144Hz

120 Hz vs 144 Hz is a gap of 1.39 ms per frame: 8.33 ms against 6.94 ms. That is hard to see, but 144 Hz still cuts input lag, and 120 Hz shows console games and 60 fps video evenly.

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Speed, px/s

Press Play. We check your refresh rate first, then the shapes start moving.

144 fps

120 fps

Verdict

120Hz vs 144Hz in numbers

120Hz vs 144Hz: frame time, blur, load and more for each rate
120 Hz144 Hz
Frame time, ms8.336.94
Motion blur at 960 px/s, px8.06.7
Least input lag, half a frame, ms4.173.47
Shows evenly, fps24, 30, 60, 12024
Pixels a second at 1440p, millions442531
Cable for 1440p, oldest versionHDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2
Cable for 4K, oldest versionHDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1 (UHBR20)
Common onPhones, TVs, consoles, laptopsGaming monitors

Pick 144 Hz if

  • your PC holds 144 fps in the games you play
  • you want every millisecond of lag gone: the least a monitor adds drops from 4.17 ms to 3.47 ms

Pick 120 Hz if

  • you play on a console, which sends at most 120 Hz
  • you watch a lot of 60 fps video, which 120 Hz shows evenly and a fixed 144 Hz can’t
  • your graphics card can’t render 20% more frames

Motion

120Hz and 144Hz side by side

At 960 pixels a second, the 120 fps shape jumps 8 px each frame and the 144 fps shape about 6.7 px. On an ordinary screen, that jump is also how wide the persistence blur looks when your eyes follow it. On a screen at 144 Hz or faster both play at real speed, and which one stutters slightly depends on your refresh rate: at 144 Hz it’s the 120 fps shape, at 165 Hz both, and at 240 or 360 Hz the 144 fps one. A 120 Hz screen plays them 6x slower and a 60 Hz screen 12x.

Why 120 and 144 look alike

Your eye picks up the ratio between two rates more than the gap in hertz. Blur Busters compares it to a camera shutter: 1/120 s against 1/480 s is plain to see, but small steps fade. From 120 Hz to 144 Hz the ratio is 1.2, against 2 for 60Hz vs 120Hz, and by Blur Busters’ figures a slow panel shrinks the visible step further. In the one study on human eye FPS that tested both rates, Qin and Zhu found no significant difference in players’ scores between 120 and 144 Hz.

Steps

120 Hz for content, 144 Hz for latency

RTINGS lists the PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 as stopping at 60 or 120 Hz. And 120 is a whole multiple of 24, 30 and 60 fps, while 144 is a multiple of 24 only. So 60 fps video judders on a monitor fixed at 144 Hz. A TV can smooth that out, the same RTINGS guide notes, but a monitor can’t. In games, G-SYNC or FreeSync avoids it by matching the refresh to the frame rate.

By the half-frame rule in the frame rate comparisons, a monitor’s minimum input lag drops from 4.17 ms at 120 Hz to 3.47 ms at 144 Hz. The refresh rate test shows which of the two your screen runs.

144Hz vs 165Hz

From 144 to 165 Hz the step is smaller again: 6.94 ms to 6.06 ms per frame, a ratio of about 1.15, where 144Hz to 240Hz is 1.67. Blur Busters uses this pair, 1/144 s against 1/165 s, as its example of refresh steps too small to be worth much. 165 Hz has reached TVs too: RTINGS lists a 165 Hz maximum for PC gaming in its LG C6 OLED review, with HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports. RTINGS’ HDMI vs DisplayPort guide adds that HDMI 2.0 stops at 147 Hz on a 1440p monitor.

Questions

Is 120Hz and 144Hz a big difference?

No. The faster screen saves 1.39 ms per frame, a sixth of the 8.33 ms that the step from 60 to 120 Hz saves. To use it, your graphics card has to render 20% more frames every second.

Does 144Hz run 120 fps?

Yes. When G-SYNC or FreeSync is on, the screen drops its refresh to 120 Hz and gives every frame the same time on screen. Without it, 120 frames spread over 144 refreshes, so one frame in five stays up for two refreshes. Setting the screen to 120 Hz removes that small stutter.

Is 144 Hz good for gaming?

Yes, for PC games that hold 144 fps: each frame lasts 6.94 ms, less than half the 16.67 ms of 60 Hz. In a 2026 study of gamers, researchers at NVIDIA and the University of Limerick call 144 Hz a possible threshold beyond which gains in smoothness and aim become marginal.

Is 165hz overkill?

Not for a PC that renders near 165 fps, where each frame lasts 6.06 ms. It is more than a console can use, since consoles send at most 120 Hz. Next to 144 Hz it asks the graphics card for about 15% more frames to shorten each one by 0.88 ms.

Sources

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