Is 1440P, 144 Hz worth it? I've been a dual-screen, 1080P, 60 Hz monitor user for years. The 22" screens worked fine and certainly weren't causing any issues...that is until I discovered I've been missing out on a whole new generation of monitors, namely 1440P and 4K monitors...
PC Setup Guide
144 Hz Monitors For League of Legends
Updated for 2026
Is 1440P, 144 Hz worth it? I've been a dual-screen, 1080P, 60 Hz monitor user for years. The 22" screens worked fine and certainly weren't causing any issues...that is until I discovered I've been missing out on a whole new generation of monitors, namely 1440P and 4K monitors...
Long story short, I ended up buying the ASUS PG279Q 27" monitor, which is probably overkill but makes everything look (in a single word)...AMAZING.
That was 2019. Since then the whole market has moved, 144 Hz stopped being the exciting number, and I've switched to a 34" QD-OLED ultrawide that I now can't imagine giving up. So this guide keeps the original explanations, updates the parts that went stale, and adds everything I've learned about refresh rates well past 144 Hz.
The Short Answer
If you're here because you're about to buy something and you'd rather not read two thousand words first, here's the whole guide compressed:
- 60 Hz to 144 Hz is the single best upgrade you can buy for League. It isn't subtle, it isn't placebo, and it's the one change where everyone notices immediately.
- 1440p at 27" is still the sweet spot. League runs on almost anything, so resolution costs you very little here compared to other games.
- 144 Hz to 240 Hz is real but small. Worth it if the price gap is small, not worth agonising over.
- 240 Hz and up is for people who've already fixed everything else. Your ping, your keybinds, and your habits matter more than your fifth hundred hertz.
- An ultrawide is a productivity purchase that happens to be great for League. More on that below, since it's what I actually use now.
Read on for the reasoning, or skip straight to the monitors worth buying if you already know the technicals.
Technical Gibberish
What's 1440P and What's 4K?
Like 1080P, this stands for your monitor's resolution, which represents how many pixels are on your screen. They correspond as below:
- 1080P: 1920 x 1080
- 1440P: 2560 x 1440
- 4K: 3840 x 2160
- Ultrawide 1440P: 3440 x 1440
Basically, having higher resolution lets you see more detail on your screen. In League specifically it also sharpens the map, the health bars, and the minion HP text, which is genuinely useful rather than just pretty.
What's 144 Hz vs 60 Hz?
The Hz stands for Hertz and shows the refresh rate. This is important because your monitor's refresh rate caps what FPS your games will be shown at. If you're hitting 100 FPS but only have a 60 Hz monitor, your monitor will show 60 FPS.
Basically you're wasting your graphics card potential...
What's G-Sync and FreeSync?
G-Sync and FreeSync both do the same job: they sync your monitor's refresh rate to whatever your graphics card is actually producing, which kills screen tearing and the choppiness that comes with it. G-Sync is NVIDIA's version, FreeSync is AMD's.
Back in 2019 this section warned that G-Sync monitors ran about $200 more than FreeSync ones, and that NVIDIA owners were stuck paying it. That's no longer true. NVIDIA now certifies most decent FreeSync panels as "G-Sync Compatible", so an NVIDIA card gets adaptive sync on a FreeSync monitor with no hardware module and no price premium. Look for the G-Sync Compatible badge and stop worrying about the rest.
What's IPS, TN, VA and OLED?
IPS monitors have better viewing angles and colors. TN has *slightly* better response time, but unless you're Faker you probably won't be able to tell the difference. IPS monitors tend to be more expensive.
VA sits between the two, with deeper blacks than IPS but slower pixel transitions, which is why VA panels can smear in dark scenes.
OLED is the panel type that didn't really exist for gaming monitors in 2019 and now dominates the top of the market. Each pixel makes its own light, so blacks are truly black, and the pixel response is roughly 0.03 ms instead of 1 ms. On a fast panel that difference in motion clarity is much more visible than the jump from 240 Hz to 360 Hz. The trade is price, plus the burn-in question covered in the ultrawide section below.
What's Worth It?
1080P vs 1440P vs 4K
While there are 4K 144 Hz monitors available, they're also absurdly expensive at about $1,799 retail at the time of this article. Chances are, your graphics card probably won't have enough firepower to run anything close to it.
If you really want to give it a try, you'll probably need two 1080Tis running in SLI...if you're running two monitors you might need more depending on what you plan on doing.
Basically, get the 1440P for now...unless you're going dual screen, then 1080P still works fine for gaming.
The verdict holds, but the reasoning got cheaper. 4K high refresh monitors now start around $500 instead of $1,799, SLI is dead and buried, and any modern midrange card runs League at 4K without complaint. 1440P is still the sweet spot because it's where price, sharpness and frame rate all line up, not because 4K is unreachable any more.
144 Hz vs 60 Hz vs 165 Hz
144 Hz is legitimately a HUGE upgrade over 60 Hz when it comes to gaming. The game feels smoother, inputs on your character feel cleaner, and projectiles are clearer. If you want to improve your skill shot dodging, aim, and reaction time, going from 60 Hz to 144 Hz is a no brainer.
Meanwhile, 144 Hz to 165 Hz really doesn't feel any different...
G-Sync vs FreeSync
I honestly can't tell if there's much difference between the two, and I don't really see any degradation in performance with G-Sync off. I got it just because I'm running an NVIDIA graphics card, but I can't say if it's worth the extra $200 on a monitor. FreeSync monitors will work with NVIDIA graphics cards, but you won't get the extra boost from the technology.
IPS vs TN
I checked out a few TN monitors in store, and they honestly just look a little washed out compared to IPS monitors. If you like to use your computer screen as a TV screen with a few people looking at it from different angles, IPS is definitely the way to go.
If you're just using it for yourself to play games, TN is cheaper and just as good, if not a little better due to the response times.
TN has basically lost this argument. Fast IPS panels caught up on response time years ago, so the only reason to buy TN now is a rock-bottom budget. If you're spending real money, the choice is between IPS and OLED, and TN doesn't enter it.
Beyond 144 Hz: How High Does It Actually Go?
This is the question that didn't exist when this post went up. In 2019, 144 Hz was the enthusiast number and 240 Hz was an expensive curiosity. Now you can buy 480 Hz OLED panels and 500 Hz plus esports monitors, and the obvious question is whether any of that does anything for a game like League.
The honest answer is yes, but with sharply diminishing returns, and the maths shows exactly why. What matters isn't the refresh rate number, it's how long each frame sits on your screen before the next one replaces it:
| Refresh rate | Frame time | Saved vs the step below | What you actually notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 Hz | 16.7 ms | Baseline | Everything. Cursor movement, camera panning, skillshots all look like a slideshow once you've seen better. |
| 144 Hz | 6.9 ms | 9.8 ms | The big one. Camera drags smoothly, projectiles read clearly, and your own clicks feel connected to the game. |
| 240 Hz | 4.2 ms | 2.7 ms | Noticeable side by side, easy to forget on its own. Fast camera pans get cleaner. |
| 360 Hz | 2.8 ms | 1.4 ms | Very hard to spot without an A/B test. Mostly matters on flick-heavy shooters, not on League. |
| 480 Hz | 2.1 ms | 0.7 ms | Genuinely the clearest motion money can buy, and almost entirely invisible unless you're looking for it. |
| 500 Hz and up | 2.0 ms or less | Under 0.2 ms | A specification, not an experience. Buy it because you want it, not because it wins games. |
So where does League land?
League has two things going for it that most games don't. It's easy to run, so a midrange card feeds 240 FPS or more without breaking a sweat, and it's played with a mouse cursor that's in constant motion, which is exactly the kind of movement high refresh rates make clearer.
It also has one thing going against it. League is not a flick-aim shooter. The skills that decide your games are wave management, cooldown tracking, map awareness, and knowing when to walk away from a fight. None of those improve because your monitor updates twice as often.
My honest take: get to 144 Hz first and treat it as mandatory. If 240 Hz costs you an extra fifty dollars, take it. Past that, spend the money on panel quality instead of on more hertz. A 240 Hz OLED will impress you far more than a 480 Hz LCD, because pixel response and contrast are what your eyes actually read as "smooth".
The one caveat: if you also play shooters, the calculus changes. Counter-Strike, Valorant and Apex all reward the extra frames far more than League does, and a 360 Hz or 480 Hz panel makes a lot more sense if League is one of several games on your machine rather than the only one.
My Ultrawide Setup, and Why It Works for League
I've been running an Alienware AW3423DWF for a while now, and it's the first monitor since the 60 Hz to 144 Hz jump that changed how the desk feels rather than just how the game looks. It's a 34" curved QD-OLED, 3440 x 1440, 165 Hz, and the blacks are the kind of black you only get when a pixel is genuinely switched off.
What it does for League
League natively supports 21:9, which means you don't get black bars and you don't need a config hack. You get roughly 29% more horizontal screen than a 16:9 monitor at the same height, and in practice that shows up as more lane in front of you and more warning before something walks out of the fog.
It's worth being straight about this: that extra vision is a real edge, and it's the reason professional matches are played on 16:9 panels. Riot allows ultrawide in solo queue because it doesn't reveal hidden information, it just shows more of what's already visible. Take that as you like.
What it does for everything else
Honestly, this is the part that justifies the price. Two full-width windows sit side by side with no bezel down the middle, which is better than the dual-monitor setup it replaced. Editing, spreadsheets, a browser next to a document, a stream next to the game, all of it stops being a window-management exercise. If you work at the same desk you play at, an ultrawide pays for itself twice.
OLED and static HUDs are a fair concern, and League has one of the most static HUDs in gaming. In practice the panel's own care features handle it: pixel refresh cycles, pixel shift, and logo dimming all run automatically, and Dell covers burn-in under a three year warranty. Vary what's on screen, don't leave the client parked for eight hours, and it's a non-issue. Just don't pretend the risk is zero.
The newer model
If you're buying today rather than reading about mine, the current version is the Alienware AW3425DW. Same 34" 3440 x 1440 QD-OLED shape, but it runs at 240 Hz instead of 165 Hz, uses a second-generation panel with better brightness, and typically launches cheaper than the DWF did. It's the one I'd buy now.
The DWF is still worth watching if you'd rather save money, though. It goes on sale regularly and 165 Hz is well past the point where the number stops mattering much.
Monitors Worth Buying
Nerfplz.LoL is an Amazon Associate. Links below earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Prices move constantly, so treat the figures as rough guidance rather than a quote.
AOC 24G4
24" · 1920x1080 · 180 Hz · IPSAround $150. The direct descendant of the budget pick in the original version of this post, and now IPS instead of VA. If you're on 60 Hz today, this is the upgrade that changes the most for the least money.
LG UltraGear 27GS75Q-B
27" · 2560x1440 · 180 Hz · IPSUsually $200 to $250. This is the monitor most people reading this should buy: 1440p, high refresh, G-Sync Compatible, and a fraction of what a comparable panel cost in 2019.
Alienware AW3423DWF
34" ultrawide · 3440x1440 · 165 Hz · QD-OLEDFrequently discounted well below its launch price. Superb for League and genuinely better than two monitors for work. See the ultrawide section above for the full write-up.
Alienware AW3425DW
34" ultrawide · 3440x1440 · 240 Hz · QD-OLEDAround $700 to $800. The DWF's replacement, with a second-generation panel and 240 Hz. If you want the ultrawide experience and you're buying new, get this one.
ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP
27" · 2560x1440 · 480 Hz · WOLEDThe expensive answer to "how high does it go". 1440p at 480 Hz with OLED pixel response is the clearest motion currently available. Complete overkill for League alone, superb if you also play shooters.
What I recommended back in 2019
Okay, so the PG279Q is $699.99 and out of budget. What are some good alternatives I found in my research? Check out the ones below:
- AOC C24G1 24" Curved Frameless Gaming Monitor - At $149, this 24" 1920x1080 monitor might be the cheapest 144 Hz, 24 inch monitor you'll find. It's also a VA monitor though, so it's somewhere between a TN and an IPS when it comes to color quality.
- Acer XG270HU - At $275, this is a 1440P, 144 Hz 27" TN monitor is almost a steal, and gives you everything you want other than G-Sync (it does come with FreeSync).
- Acer Predator X27 - On the other end of the spectrum of budget monitors is the pinnacle of monitors (other than medical monitors). This 144 Hz 4K IPS monitor is future proof for the next few years, but at a steep $1,399 won't come easy.
Those three are kept here as a record of what this post originally recommended. All of them have been superseded, and the 2026 picks above are what to buy instead.
Getting League of Legends to Work With 144 Hz and Higher
Other than whatever monitor specific things you need to get it to 144 Hz, here are some additional directions specific to League of Legends:
Step 1: Set your refresh rate in Windows first
This is the step that catches most people, because Windows does not always pick your monitor's top refresh rate on its own. Go to Settings, System, Display, Advanced display, and set the refresh rate to the highest number your monitor offers. If the number you want isn't there, you're probably on an HDMI cable that can't carry it. Use DisplayPort.
Step 2: Set Compatibility Off
- Go to C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\Game\ or wherever your League folder lives.
- Right click "League of Legends.exe" and select properties
- Go to compatibility tab
- Check the "disable fullscreen optimizations" box and hit apply
The original version of this step pointed at a path inside a RADS folder. Riot retired RADS years ago, so that folder no longer exists on a current install. The executable now lives directly in the Game folder shown above, and the rest of the step is unchanged.
Step 3: Restart League Client
Step 4: Set In-Game Video Settings
Make sure to set your Frame Rate Cap to either "Uncapped" or the highest option your monitor supports, and disable Vertical Sync.
One last check. Once you're in a game, turn the FPS counter on with Ctrl+F and confirm you're actually seeing your monitor's number. If League reports 240 FPS but the display is still stuck at 60, the problem is in Windows or your cable, not in the game.
Personal Thoughts
I was skeptical that a monitor could make much of a difference in visual performance, but honestly speaking upgrading from a 60 Hz monitor to a 144 Hz almost feels like going from a hard drive to a solid state. Everything's crisper, cleaner, and even browsing websites feels smoother. It's AWESOME!
Years later I'd add one thing to that. The 60 Hz to 144 Hz jump is the only monitor upgrade I've made that I noticed on day one without looking for it. The move to OLED is the only other one that came close, and that's about contrast rather than speed. Everything else has been a nice-to-have. If you take one thing from this post, make it that: get to 144 Hz, then stop optimising your hardware and go work on your keybinds instead.
What to Read Next
If you've just fixed your monitor and you want the rest of your setup and your play to catch up, these are the pieces to read next. Start with advanced hotkeys and keybindings, which is the free version of the upgrade you just paid for, then input buffering for instant reactions for the mechanical layer underneath it. Our advanced champion mechanics hub collects the rest of that series in one place.
For the part a faster monitor genuinely helps with, how to hit every skillshot is still the best thing we've written on aiming and dodging. If your problem is latency rather than frames, does ping change which champion you should play? is the companion question, and it's the one more players should be asking.
And for everything that has nothing to do with hardware, try ten ways to improve at League outside of playing, how matchmaking actually works, or our current solo queue tier list if you just want to know what's strong right now.
FAQ
Is a 144 Hz monitor actually worth it for League of Legends?
Yes, and it's the least debatable upgrade in this whole guide. Going from 60 Hz to 144 Hz cuts the time each frame sits on screen from 16.7 ms to 6.9 ms, which is enough that camera panning, projectiles and your own cursor all read differently. It's the one change nobody has to squint to notice.
Do I need 240 Hz or 360 Hz for League?
No. The jump from 144 Hz to 240 Hz saves 2.7 ms per frame and 240 Hz to 360 Hz saves 1.4 ms, both of which are hard to spot outside a direct comparison. Take 240 Hz if it's cheap, but spend the money on panel quality before you spend it on more hertz.
Does League of Legends support ultrawide monitors?
Yes, natively. Set 3440 x 1440 in the video options and you get the full 21:9 image with no black bars and no config editing. You see roughly 29% more horizontally than on a 16:9 screen of the same height, which is why professional matches are played on 16:9 hardware.
What FPS do I need to use a 144 Hz monitor?
At least 144, and ideally more so your frame rate never dips below the refresh rate. League is light enough that almost any modern graphics card clears this comfortably at 1440p. Set the in-game Frame Rate Cap to Uncapped and turn Vertical Sync off.
Is 1440p too demanding for League?
Not remotely. League is one of the easiest games to run on the market, so the resolution jump costs you far less here than it would in a modern shooter. 27" at 1440p is the size and sharpness combination most people should be buying.
Should I worry about OLED burn-in with League's static HUD?
It's a fair concern and not a dealbreaker. Modern OLED monitors run pixel refresh cycles, pixel shifting and logo dimming automatically, and Dell's Alienware panels carry a three year burn-in warranty. Avoid leaving the client parked on screen for hours and you're unlikely to ever see it.
Do I still need to pay extra for G-Sync?
No. NVIDIA certifies most decent FreeSync panels as G-Sync Compatible, so an NVIDIA card gets adaptive sync without the hardware module or the price premium that used to come with it. Check for the G-Sync Compatible badge and buy on panel quality instead.
Thinking about getting a new monitor? Need some advice even after all this information? Comment below and tell us what you're running now and what you're considering.
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