Is a 60Hz Monitor Good for Gaming? | The Honest Answer

A 60Hz monitor is good for casual and single-player gaming, but for competitive or fast-paced titles, a 120Hz or higher display delivers noticeably smoother motion and better responsiveness.

Whether a 60Hz monitor is “good enough” for gaming depends entirely on what you play and what hardware you run. If your rig struggles to push past 60 frames per second, a higher refresh rate offers zero benefit — the monitor simply cannot show frames it never receives. For the competitive gamer, however, the jump from 60Hz to 144Hz is one of the most tangible upgrades you can make. Let’s unpack the real tradeoffs.

What 60Hz Actually Means for Your Games

A 60Hz monitor refreshes its image 60 times per second. If your game renders at a steady 60 fps, the result is smooth and perfectly matched. The trouble starts when fast motion creates motion blur or you’re sensitive to the slight stutter between frames. Higher refresh rates reduce that blur and make motion feel more fluid and responsive. RTINGS notes that 60Hz is fine for general use and casual gaming, while ViewSonic’s guidance recommends 120Hz+ for fast-paced titles like shooters and racers. The key is matching the display to both your hardware and your game library.

When 60Hz Is a Smart Choice

If your PC or console rarely exceeds 60 fps in the games you actually play, a 60Hz monitor is a sensible and cost-effective pick. Many single-player titles — RPGs, strategy games, narrative adventures — simply don’t benefit from higher frame rates. On a console like the PS5 or Xbox Series X, many games target 30 or 60 fps anyway, meaning a 60Hz screen shows exactly what the console outputs. For this audience, spending extra on a high-refresh panel buys nothing real. If you’re in this camp and ready to buy, our roundup of the best 60Hz monitors covers the top tested picks for exactly this use case.

When You Should Upgrade Past 60Hz

For competitive genres — fast-paced shooters, battle royales, racing sims, or esports titles — the difference is real. A 144Hz display refreshes 2.4 times more often per second. That means less motion blur when you flick your aim, sharper visibility during fast camera pans, and a subjective feeling of “snappier” controls. Asus’s gaming division emphasizes that higher refresh rates reduce perceived latency, and RTINGS confirms the motion clarity advantage is especially noticeable for gamers sensitive to stutter. The catch: your hardware must be able to deliver those extra frames. A graphics card that tops out at 65 fps on a 144Hz monitor leaves the extra potential unused — you’re effectively still seeing 60Hz-level performance.

Common Misconceptions: Refresh Rate vs. Frame Rate

One of the most persistent mix-ups is treating refresh rate and frame rate as the same thing. Refresh rate (60Hz, 144Hz) is how often the monitor updates its image. Frame rate (fps) is how many frames the game’s engine renders per second. A 60Hz monitor cannot display more than 60 unique frames per second, even if the game renders at 120 fps — the extra frames are simply wasted (or can cause screen tearing without VRR). Conversely, a 144Hz monitor running a game at 45 fps shows motion no smoother than a 60Hz monitor would, because the source frames aren’t there. This is why RTINGS and other experts stress matching the display to your hardware’s real-world output, not to a marketing number.