If you want to upgrade your gaming experience without a new GPU, we’ve got an amazing deal for you today. Dell is selling the 24.5-inch Alienware AW2521H 1080p, 360Hz G-Sync monitor for $450. That’s more than half off the $910 MSRP, and significantly less than the $800-plus you’d normally spend on a ludicrously smooth 360Hz display.
This monitor isn’t very big at just under 25 inches, but the key advantage here is that super high refresh rate. It’s not that common right now, but we’ve had the chance to try out other 360Hz monitors and we’ve found that the visual advantages are well worth the investment.
“The almost tactile smoothness of a 360Hz refresh rate can’t be overstated,” we said in our test of Nvidia Reflex with a 360Hz monitor. “From games to mousing around the desktop, everything runs like butter…Playing on a 360Hz IPS monitor is simply sublime. Everything feels so smooth.” To get that higher refresh rate you need to hook this monitor up to your graphics card over DisplayPort.
This Alienware is quite a dramatic shift from, say, a 120Hz monitor and well worth the money for frame rate snobs. If you’re a competitive esports gamer, the smaller screen size is actually a benefit, as it’ll allow you to easily keep every one of those ultra-fast pixels in your sight. On top of all the visual advantages you get from the refresh rate, this monitor also supports Nvidia’s G-Sync technology for syncing up refresh rates with Nvidia GeForce graphics cards.
Once you’ve used a 360Hz display, it’s hard to go back to anything else. The smoothness can’t be overstated. Competitive gamers with unspent GPU money burning a hole in their pockets should definitely check this deal out.
[Today’s deal: Alienware AW2521H 360Hz monitor for $450 at Dell.]
Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn’t like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he’s not covering the news he’s working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.