Meet the 1080 Hz Gaming Monitor
Display maker HKC is about to shake things up for competitive PC gamers with an extreme new gaming monitor under its AntGamer brand. This screen is headed to CES and is designed purely for speed and responsiveness. If you care more about winning gunfights than admiring scenery, this kind of monitor is built with you in mind.
The headline feature is eye catching. The panel can hit an incredible 1,080 Hz refresh rate. That is more than six times higher than the 165 Hz monitors many gamers use today and far beyond even the 360 Hz displays used in esports arenas.
To reach such numbers, HKC uses a dual mode design. In its native mode the monitor is a 1440p panel that runs at 540 Hz. When you want maximum refresh rate you can switch to 720p resolution and unlock the full 1,080 Hz. This trade off lets players choose between sharper visuals or absolute lowest motion blur and input latency.
How The Dual Mode Panel Works
The panel at the heart of this monitor is a Fast TN display. TN panels have been around for years and are known for lightning fast response times, which is why they are still popular in hardcore competitive gaming despite weaker viewing angles and color compared to IPS and OLED.
HKC is pushing this Fast TN technology to the extreme. Here is how the two main modes break down.
1440p 540 Hz mode This is the native resolution of the panel. At 2560 by 1440 you get much sharper images than 1080p, which is great for seeing enemy silhouettes and reading fine UI elements. A 540 Hz refresh rate means the screen can show up to 540 frames every second, massively reducing motion blur and making tracking fast movement feel more natural.
720p 1,080 Hz mode When you need absolute speed and do not care about resolution, the monitor can switch down to 1280 by 720. In this mode it is capable of a staggering 1,080 Hz. That means a new frame can be displayed roughly every 0.93 milliseconds, which is far faster than the vast majority of gaming setups can currently drive.
In practice this dual mode setup is mainly aimed at serious competitive players. Many esports pros already lower their resolution to hit very high frame rates and reduce distractions. A 720p 1,080 Hz mode fits perfectly into that mindset. Casual and single player focused gamers will likely prefer staying at 1440p with 540 Hz and pushing for a balance of clarity and speed.
Why DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 Matters
To feed such insane refresh rates and resolutions you need a massive amount of bandwidth between the graphics card and the monitor. That is where DisplayPort 2.1 with UHBR20 support comes in.
UHBR20 is one of the highest speed modes in the DisplayPort 2.1 standard. It provides up to 80 gigabits per second of raw bandwidth, which is far more than DisplayPort 1.4 and even HDMI 2.1. This extra headroom is crucial when you are trying to push hundreds or thousands of frames per second at high resolution without needing aggressive compression.
For PC gamers this has a few important implications.
You will need a modern graphics card that actually supports DisplayPort 2.1 at high data rates. Current and upcoming GPUs from major vendors are slowly rolling this out, but not every card has full UHBR20 capability.
Your system will need to be tuned for extremely high frame rates. Achieving 540 or 1,080 fps in real games means very powerful CPUs and GPUs, lower graphics settings, and esports style titles that are already optimized for high performance.
As DisplayPort 2.1 monitors arrive, they will set a new bar for what cutting edge GPUs can do. If you invest in a monitor like this you are effectively future proofing for several GPU generations focused on higher frame rates.
The inclusion of DP 2.1 UHBR20 is a strong signal that this screen is not just a concept but is being positioned as a serious tool for competitive players and enthusiasts chasing every last millisecond of advantage.
Who This Monitor Is For
HKC’s AntGamer 1080 Hz monitor is a niche product, but a very interesting one for the PC hardware world. It shows how far display makers are willing to push refresh rates for gamers who live in titles like Counter Strike, Valorant, Fortnite or other fast paced shooters.
If you are a casual gamer focused on rich visuals, story driven games or wide color gamuts, an IPS or OLED panel at 1440p or 4K with more modest refresh rates will probably make you happier. You will get better viewing angles, deeper blacks and stronger color reproduction.
If you are a competitive player or simply love bleeding edge hardware, this kind of Fast TN speed demon is worth watching. The ability to flip between sharp 1440p at 540 Hz and pure speed at 720p 1,080 Hz lets you tailor your setup to the game and the situation. Combine that with DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 support and you have a monitor that is designed to ride the next wave of ultra high frame rate PC gaming.
As CES approaches we can expect more information on final specs, input options, response time ratings, and of course pricing. But even at this early stage, HKC’s AntGamer panel is a clear sign that the high end gaming monitor race is far from over and that refresh rates are still climbing into territory that once sounded impossible.
Original article and image: https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/gaming-monitors/worlds-first-1-080-hertz-gaming-monitor-with-dual-mode-support-announced-hkcs-super-speedy-panel-hits-peak-speeds-at-720p-steps-down-to-540hz-at-1440p-will-reportedly-feature-dp-2-1-uhbr20
