Refresh rate test

Your display

Your browser shares these details about your screen, but not its refresh rate, which is why we measure that. With scaling on, your screen resolution and the size in CSS pixels differ: at 150%, a 2560 by 1440 screen counts as 1707 by 960 CSS pixels.

Resolution

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Size in CSS pixels

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Browser window

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Pixel ratio

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Refresh rate, measured

Run the test

Color gamut

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HDR reported

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Color depth

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Screens

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Why your screen shows 60 Hz

If your 120 or 144 Hz screen reads 60, one of these is usually why. The test marks any it can spot on your device.

1. The operating system is set to 60 Hz

   New monitors often start at 60 Hz, and Windows only offers the rates your monitor supports at its current resolution.

   Fix. Windows 11: Settings > System > Display > Advanced display > Choose a refresh rate. macOS: System Settings > Displays > Refresh Rate.

2. Your cable or port can't carry the rate

   At 4K, HDMI 2.0 tops out at 69 Hz, so a 4K screen on it shows 60. If your desktop screen is plugged into the motherboard instead of the graphics card, it also runs off the slower built-in graphics.

   Fix. Use DisplayPort or HDMI 2.1, and the port on the graphics card.

3. Safari keeps pages near 60 fps

   On ProMotion iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pros, Safari keeps web pages near 60 fps by default, even on a 120 Hz screen.

   Fix. iPhone and iPad: Settings > Apps > Safari > Advanced > Feature Flags, turn off Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps, then force quit Safari. Mac: Safari > Settings > Advanced, tick Show features for web developers, then Feature Flags, untick the same flag and restart Safari.

4. A battery saver is on

   With Low Power Mode on an iPhone or Mac, or Chrome's Energy Saver on a laptop running on battery, pages run at a lower rate, often 30.

   Fix. Plug in, or turn the saver off. Chrome: Settings > Performance > Energy Saver.

5. Chrome on Android runs pages at 60

   On phones with a 120 Hz or faster screen, Chrome slows page animation to about 60 fps to save battery. Scrolling still runs at full speed.

   Fix. Nothing is wrong with your phone. Its screen still runs at full rate outside the page.

6. The browser follows your main monitor

   On Windows, Chrome, Edge and Firefox time every page to your main display, so a 144 Hz screen next to a 60 Hz main screen can show 60.

   Fix. Settings > System > Display, select the fast screen, then Multiple displays > Make this my main display.

7. Graphics acceleration is off

   Without it, your browser times frames with a software clock instead of your screen.

   Fix. Chrome: Settings > System > Use graphics acceleration when available, then restart Chrome.

8. A privacy mode locks the rate at 60

   Firefox with resistFingerprinting on, and Tor Browser, which turns it on by default, run every page at 60 fps and round their clock to match.

   Fix. Run the test in a normal browser profile.

9. You are on remote desktop or in a virtual machine

   Windows Remote Desktop sends 30 frames a second by default, whatever the screen at the other end can show.

   Fix. Run the test on the computer the screen is plugged into.

Change the refresh rate

Your screen runs at whatever rate your computer, phone or console sends it, and most start at 60 Hz. Change it in the settings below, then run the test again to check it worked.

Windows 11

Settings > System > Display > Advanced display, then Choose a refresh rate. The same page shows the current rate under Display information. Dynamic refresh rate, a toggle on that page, switches the rate by itself on screens that support it and can limit games that don't use VRR.

Windows 10

Settings > System > Display > Advanced display settings, pick the display, then Refresh rate.

macOS

System Settings > Displays > Refresh Rate. On a MacBook Pro with ProMotion, choose ProMotion. For an Adaptive Sync monitor, choose Variable or Adaptive, and connect it by Thunderbolt, USB-C or DisplayPort: Apple says not to use HDMI.

iPhone and iPad

No refresh setting. Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Limit Frame Rate holds a ProMotion screen at 60. Low Power Mode also holds a ProMotion iPhone at 60 while it's on.

Samsung Galaxy

Settings > Display > Motion smoothness, choose Adaptive, then Apply. Standard is 60 Hz. Power saving mode switches it back to Standard.

Google Pixel

Settings > Display & touch > Smooth Display. Battery Saver turns Smooth Display off.

Xiaomi

Settings > Display & brightness > Refresh rate.

PlayStation 5

Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > 120 Hz Output. 4K at 120 Hz needs the TV's HDMI 2.1 port and the cable that came with the console or an Ultra High Speed one.

Xbox Series X|S

Settings > General > TV & display options > Refresh rate > 120 Hz. 4K at 120 Hz needs a Series X, an HDMI 2.1 TV and an Ultra High Speed cable. Series S runs 120 Hz at lower resolutions.

Nintendo Switch 2

System Settings > Display > 120 Hz Output. In TV mode, only at 1080p and 1440p.

NVIDIA graphics

NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Change resolution > Refresh rate.

AMD graphics

Set the rate in Windows, as above. AMD Software's Custom Resolution adds modes a monitor does not list.

The monitor's own menu

Some monitors reach their top rate only with an overclock setting switched on in the on-screen menu. On ASUS models it is Gaming > Over Clocking, with Adaptive-Sync off while you set it. Spec sheets mark these rates OC.

Cables and ports

Your cable and ports have to carry every pixel of every refresh. If they can't, the faster rates don't show up in your settings, or the screen goes black. The table shows the highest rate each connection carries at 8-bit color without compression, using RTINGS' figures and DisplayNinja's for HDMI 1.4. A monitor's own ports can be slower: the AOC Q27G3XMN does 180 Hz over DisplayPort but only 144 Hz over its HDMI 2.0 port.

• The slowest part wins. Plug an HDMI 2.1 monitor into an HDMI 2.0 graphics card and you get HDMI 2.0 rates. A "2.1" label doesn't guarantee full speed either: some HDMI 2.1 monitors only take 24 Gbps.
• Compression raises the limit. Display Stream Compression (DSC) squeezes up to three times the data through the same cable, which is how the Alienware AW2725Q runs 4K at 240 Hz over DisplayPort 1.4. It's sold as visually lossless, but RTINGS notes it can add artifacts or stop NVIDIA's DSR and DLDSR from working.
• USB-C only carries video from ports with DisplayPort Alt Mode, and not every USB-C port has it.

Screen tearing

A tear is a horizontal break across a moving picture. It happens, RTINGS explains, when a new frame arrives partway through a refresh, so you see part of one frame and part of the next. It's a timing problem, not damage, and it's easy to confuse with stutter and ghosting.

• Tearing The picture splits, the two parts sit shifted sideways, and the break jumps around. You see it most when you turn fast in a shooter.
• Stutter The whole picture moves in uneven steps, without splitting. Dropped frames cause it: the FPS test counts them and the GPU stress test shows them under load. So does a frame rate your screen can't divide evenly, such as 60 fps on a 144 Hz monitor.
• Ghosting A trail behind moving things, because the pixels can't change fast enough within one refresh. The ghosting test shows it.

Programs outside games can tear too. Microsoft's documentation says DirectX lets any program allow tearing, even in a window on PCs with multi-plane overlay support. Chromium's code shows Chrome does it on Windows only when GPU vsync is switched off, which it isn't by default. If one program tears, check its V-Sync setting. The free PresentMon tool can show whether a program has tearing allowed, according to its README.

V-Sync, G-SYNC and FreeSync

• V-Sync The graphics card waits for the screen, which stops tearing but adds lag. In AMD's figures, a game that runs faster than the screen has 80.7 ms of latency with V-Sync on and 40.1 ms with it off. And a game that can't keep up can lose half its frame rate: on a 60 Hz screen, 59 fps drops to 30, DisplayNinja notes.
• G-SYNC and FreeSync With variable refresh rate (VRR), your screen waits for each new frame instead of refreshing on a fixed clock. A game at 97 fps shows at 97 Hz, as long as that's inside the monitor's VRR range, with almost no tearing and low lag. RTINGS says native G-SYNC needs special hardware in the monitor, while G-SYNC Compatible doesn't, and NVIDIA cards from the 10 series on can run FreeSync monitors as G-SYNC Compatible over DisplayPort. Over HDMI, NVIDIA says you need a monitor with HDMI Forum VRR and a newer card. AMD's FreeSync Premium and Premium Pro need a higher top rate than plain FreeSync: 200 Hz instead of 144 Hz, on screens under 3440 pixels wide.
• Consoles RTINGS lists FreeSync and HDMI Forum VRR on the Xbox Series X|S, and only HDMI Forum VRR on the PS5.
• Frame caps VRR stops working above the monitor's top rate, so a faster game can tear again. DisplayNinja suggests capping the game a few fps below that rate, in the game's settings or with a tool like RivaTuner Statistics Server.

Refresh rates you can buy

You can buy every rate below in a phone, monitor or TV in 2026, and the test tells you which one yours matches. The interval is how long each refresh lasts. OC means the monitor reaches that rate with its overclock setting on.

Video often runs just under a round number: 23.976, 29.97 and 59.94 are 24, 30 and 60 slowed by 0.1%, a leftover from color TV broadcasting. Macs offer 59.94 and 47.95 Hz modes so the screen can match video frame for frame, and the test recognizes those too.

Going from 60 to 120 Hz halves the time each picture stays up, which 60Hz vs 120Hz shows side by side. From 120 to 144 Hz you save only 1.39 ms per refresh, as 120Hz vs 144Hz shows, and 144Hz vs 240Hz covers the 2.78 ms step after that.

How the refresh rate is measured

Every time your screen refreshes, your browser hands the page a timestamp. We record them all and work out the rate from them.

• The fit. We find the interval that fits all the timestamps best, using a straight-line fit rather than an average, so one late frame can't pull the result off. While the test runs, the live number uses the last 10 seconds; the final result uses the whole run. A refresh your browser missed counts as a miss, not as a slower screen.
• The lock. The number locks to two decimals once three seconds in a row agree to within half a percent. The "within" figure is the 95% range of the measurement.
• Interval and jitter. The interval is the time between two refreshes. Jitter is how far frames land from that steady beat.
• The standard rate. We match your result to the nearest rate in the table above, or to a film or video rate (24, 25, 30, 48 and 50 Hz, and their 1000/1001 versions), but only if it's within 0.3%. So a custom 150 Hz mode isn't mistaken for 144.
• What it can't see. If your browser holds pages below your screen's rate, the test shows that limit, not the panel's rate. Problems that have nothing to do with timing, like dead pixels or uneven backlight, show up on the monitor test.

Nothing runs until you press Start. We skip the first second while the page settles. The test stops if you switch tabs, change the window width or zoom, or the rate itself changes during the run.