If you've ever switched from a 60 Hz monitor to a 144 Hz or 240 Hz panel, you probably noticed that everything feels faster and more responsive — scrolling is smoother, mouse movement is more fluid, and games feel like they have less input delay. But does a higher refresh rate actually improve your measured reaction time on a test? The answer is yes, and the effect is larger than most people expect.
The Physics of Display Latency
A 60 Hz monitor refreshes the screen 60 times per second, which means a new frame appears every 16.67 milliseconds. A 144 Hz monitor refreshes every 6.94 ms. A 240 Hz monitor refreshes every 4.17 ms. When a stimulus (like a colour change in a reaction time test) occurs on the server, it has to wait for the next monitor refresh cycle before it actually appears on your screen. On average, you wait half a refresh cycle — 8.3 ms on a 60 Hz panel, 3.5 ms on a 144 Hz panel, or 2.1 ms on a 240 Hz panel. This is pure display latency, invisible to the player, that adds directly to your measured reaction time. The difference between 60 Hz and 240 Hz averages about 6 ms just from this refresh-cycle waiting alone.
Pixel Response Time Adds Up
Refresh rate isn't the only variable — pixel response time (the speed at which individual pixels transition from one colour to another) also contributes. A cheap 60 Hz panel with a 10 ms response time adds another 10 ms of delay on top of the refresh latency, because the pixels take that long to physically display the new colour. A high-end 240 Hz gaming monitor typically has a 1–3 ms response time, saving you another 7–9 ms. The total hardware latency difference between a low-end 60 Hz monitor and a high-end 240 Hz monitor can easily be 15–20 ms — enough to shift your reaction time score from "average" to "above average" without any change in your actual cognitive processing speed.
Input Processing Chain
The full input chain from stimulus to registered click includes: server generates event → network/browser processing → GPU renders frame → monitor displays frame (refresh cycle + pixel response) → your eyes perceive stimulus → brain processes and decides → motor signal travels to finger → finger clicks mouse → mouse sends signal → operating system registers click. The monitor contributes to two steps: frame display delay and the visual clarity that helps your eyes detect the stimulus faster. Higher refresh rates also reduce motion blur, which means changes on screen are more immediately recognisable — you don't have to wait for the image to "settle" before your brain identifies what happened. This perceptual advantage is harder to quantify but real.
Real-World Test Data
Multiple studies and community benchmarks have measured the reaction time difference across refresh rates on identical tests. The typical findings: switching from 60 Hz to 144 Hz improves measured reaction time by 8–15 ms on average. Switching from 144 Hz to 240 Hz improves it by another 3–7 ms. Switching from 240 Hz to 360 Hz improves it by 1–3 ms. The gains follow a curve of diminishing returns — the jump from 60 to 144 is the most impactful and is noticeable to everyone. The jump from 144 to 240 is measurable but subtle. Beyond 240, the gains are marginal and only relevant for players chasing the absolute lowest possible times. For competitive gaming, 144 Hz is the sweet spot of value — it captures most of the advantage at a fraction of the cost of higher-end panels.
Does This Mean Your Reaction Time Is "Fake" on a 60 Hz Monitor?
Not fake, but inflated. Your measured reaction time on a 60 Hz monitor includes real hardware latency that a 240 Hz monitor would remove. Your cognitive reaction time — the actual speed of your brain — is the same regardless of monitor. If you score 250 ms on a 60 Hz panel and then retest on a 240 Hz panel with otherwise identical conditions, you'd likely score 230–240 ms. The improvement is real (you're registering the click faster in wall-clock time) but it didn't come from your brain getting faster. This is worth understanding because it means leaderboard comparisons between players on different hardware aren't perfectly fair — a player on a 240 Hz monitor has a built-in 10–20 ms advantage over a 60 Hz player before either of them has done any training.
See how your current setup performs on the Reaction Time Test and use the result as your personal hardware-specific baseline.