CES 2020 PC highlights: 360Hz and Mini LED monitors, new G-Sync OLEDs and a killer feature for VR

CES 2020 kicks off today, bringing with it a host of PC gaming announcements from Asus, Nvidia, Lenovo and LG. While most of the news is pretty standard, there are a few surprises too - including the first 360Hz gaming monitor, ray tracing and DLSS support for a popular recent game and a truly impressive 4K Mini LED monitor. While most of the hardware announced today is high-end, you can expect the features that debut here to trickle down to more affordable models in the months to come, making this a good chance to see how the PC gaming industry will progress in 2020. Here are the highlights thus far.

Let's start with that 360Hz monitor. It's called the Asus ROG Swift 360Hz, and unsurprisingly it can draw 50 per cent more frames per second than a 240Hz monitor, making for a more fluid experience. Of course, generating that many frames requires both a high-end PC and a relatively old game - think esports titles like Counter-Strike, Overwatch or League of Legends. The monitor runs at 1080p - no surprises there - and supports full-fat G-Sync all the way up to 360Hz. Other specifications are missing at present, including the panel type, pixel response times and so on, suggesting that this is some distance away from being a finished retail product.

Former Counter-Strike professional Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert is one of the few outside Nvidia to have gone hands-on with the monitor. He appears in a promotional video released by the company, espousing the increase in visual clarity the higher refresh rate provides and how that can translate into a competitive advantage - something that we've also demonstrated at 144 and 240Hz. A lot of questions still remain, especially with no release date or price available, but we look forward to seeing whether 360Hz makes sense even for the small proportion of gamers that play competitive games at a high level and how Asus and Nvidia have achieved this higher refresh rate without visual artefacts like ghosting.

Read more