At some point, the payoff for higher refresh rates should certainly diminish. But not yet; Alienware's 500Hz gaming monitor is now available for $829 (opens in new tab).

The Alienware AW2524H was originally announced at CES in January (opens in new tab). But now it is actually available for purchase on the Dell Alienware website; Asus promised a 500 Hz screen from Computex (opens in new tab), but this is the first to achieve this refresh rate on an IPS panel rather than a TN panel.

This is a 25" model, and given the refresh rate, it is necessarily 1920 x 1080 pixels. In other words, it is a complete esports panel, built for speed rather than pretty graphics.

On that note, Alienware claims a 0.5ms gray-to-gray response, which is extraordinary. However, it also claims a gray-to-gray response of 1 ms. We too are puzzled.

More specifically, Alienware states that 1 ms is an "extreme" gray-to-gray response, while 0.5 ms relates to a "minimal" gray-to-gray response. At any rate. There is no doubt that this panel is very fast by IPS standards. However, it will still not come close to the response of an OLED panel.

This new Alienware panel is something of a niche tool: 1080p on a 25" panel, so image clarity is not a priority. However, the fact that IPS is being touted in a big way suggests that image quality is important.

And it offers 500 Hz refresh, which is optimal for latency and better than any OLED monitor (open in new tab). However, it falls short of OLEDs in terms of pixel responsiveness, however you measure it.

And it's over $800. Ouch.

Really, these new Alienware panels serve to confirm how fragmented the monitor market is. Considering factors such as refresh rate, responsiveness, brightness, contrast, black levels, color accuracy, and pixel density, one must accept that no single panel technology can do it all.

Currently, LCD monitors offer the best refresh rates and latency, mini LED models offer the best brightness, and OLEDs offer the best lighting control and pixel speed. But if you value latency above all else and the $829 price tag is not an issue, you know what to do.