Monitor refresh rate test

What this measures

Refresh rate is how many times a second your monitor draws a new image, in hertz. A 60 Hz panel redraws sixty times a second; a 144 Hz one does it more than twice as often, which is what makes motion look smoother.

This test times three seconds of frames and reports the rate. It uses the median rather than the average, because a single slow frame - a background tab waking up, a garbage collection - is enough to drag an average well below the true figure. The median ignores outliers, which is what a number that should be one of a handful of fixed values needs.

How to get an accurate reading

1. Keep this tab in front for the whole three seconds. Browsers stop presenting frames to a background tab, which would read as a very low rate.
2. Close anything heavy - a video call, a game, a large export.
3. Run it two or three times. A consistent figure is a real one.
4. Check the slowest-frame reading. If it is far above the others, something stuttered and the result is worth repeating.

When the reading is lower than your monitor's rating

This is common and usually not a fault with the panel. In rough order of likelihood:

• The rate is not set. Buying a 144 Hz monitor does not enable 144 Hz. On Windows it is under Display settings, Advanced display; on macOS under Displays. Plenty of monitors ship defaulted to 60.
• The cable. HDMI and DisplayPort versions have bandwidth limits. A cable that carries 4K at 60 Hz may not carry it at 144.
• The browser is capping it. Some browsers present at 60 Hz regardless of the display, particularly with hardware acceleration disabled.
• Power saving. Many laptops drop the panel to 60 Hz on battery.
• Variable refresh. With G-Sync or FreeSync the rate follows the content and will not sit on a round number.

Because of the middle two, a reading below your panel's rating is not by itself evidence the panel is faulty - and this tool will not tell you it is.

Does refresh rate actually matter?

For motion, yes, and the step from 60 to 120 or 144 is the one most people notice - moving windows and scrolling text look markedly clearer. Beyond about 240 Hz the returns fall away sharply for anything but competitive gaming. For reading, editing photographs or watching film, 60 Hz is entirely sufficient; film is mastered at 24 frames a second regardless of what your monitor can do.

Refresh rate is not frame rate

They are measured in different things and often confused. Frame rate is how many images your computer produces per second; refresh rate is how many your monitor shows. A game running at 200 fps on a 60 Hz monitor still shows you 60 images a second - the rest are discarded. This test measures the monitor side.