Refresh Rate Converter (Hz to ms Frame Time)

Three steps

Type a refresh rate into the Hz field, or tap one of the preset chips (60, 75, 100, 120, 144, 165, 240, 360Hz). If you only know the frame time, type it into the ms field instead — the Hz field fills in automatically. Then read the timing scale below the result, which plots your refresh rate against a 60Hz baseline on the same 100ms window so you can see the gap between frames shrink or grow.

The formula

One second equals 1,000 milliseconds. If a display refreshes evenly Hz times per second, each frame gets an equal slice of that second.

Frame time (ms) = 1,000 ÷ refresh rate (Hz)
Refresh rate (Hz) = 1,000 ÷ frame time (ms)

Take 144Hz: 1,000 ÷ 144 ≈ 6.94ms per frame. A 60Hz display refreshes every 16.67ms, so 144Hz shaves about 9.72ms off each interval. Run the formula the other way and a frame time of 8.33ms converts back to 1,000 ÷ 8.33 ≈ 120Hz.

Do you actually notice 60, 120, 144, 165, 240 and 360Hz?

The math is simple, but the perceived difference is not linear the way the raw Hz numbers might suggest. Here is what changes at each common step, in terms of the frame interval itself:

• 60Hz → 120Hz: frame time drops from 16.67ms to 8.33ms, a difference of 8.33ms. This is the single biggest jump on the list, and the one nearly everyone notices immediately in cursor movement and scrolling.
• 120Hz → 144Hz: interval drops to 6.94ms, only 1.39ms tighter. Most people need to look closely, side by side, to tell 120Hz and 144Hz apart.
• 144Hz → 165Hz: down to 6.06ms, a difference of 0.88ms — a common factory overclock of the same panel, and harder still to tell apart.
• 165Hz → 240Hz: down to 4.17ms, a 1.89ms drop. Competitive players in fast-paced shooters often report this as meaningfully smoother; casual use rarely benefits.
• 240Hz → 360Hz: down to 2.78ms, only 1.39ms tighter. This is squarely diminishing-returns territory, valuable mainly to esports players chasing every last millisecond of input-to-photon latency.

Every time you double the refresh rate, the frame interval is cut in half — but the absolute time saved keeps shrinking. That is why 60→120Hz feels transformative while 240→360Hz feels marginal, even though both are a doubling in Hz.

Variable refresh rate: G-Sync, FreeSync and VRR

A fixed refresh rate assumes your GPU always finishes a frame at a perfectly even interval, which it rarely does. When the frame rate (FPS) your graphics card produces does not line up with the monitor's fixed Hz, parts of two different frames can be shown in the same redraw, producing a horizontal artifact called screen tearing.

Variable refresh rate (VRR) fixes this by letting the monitor redraw exactly when a new frame is ready, instead of on a rigid clock. VESA's Adaptive-Sync is the open standard behind most modern implementations. AMD's FreeSync is built on Adaptive-Sync and comes in three certification tiers — FreeSync, FreeSync Premium, and FreeSync Premium Pro — which add requirements like low framerate compensation and HDR support at the higher tiers. NVIDIA's G-Sync historically required a proprietary hardware module inside the monitor for the tightest variable-rate range, while the newer "G-Sync Compatible" label certifies FreeSync monitors that pass NVIDIA's testing without that extra hardware. On consoles and many recent TVs, VRR usually arrives over HDMI 2.1's built-in variable refresh rate spec. Whichever standard a monitor supports, it only helps within its advertised Hz range — outside that window, the display falls back to standard fixed-rate behavior.

Response time (GtG) is a different number than refresh rate

It's easy to conflate two specs that both get written in milliseconds. Refresh rate describes how often the whole screen redraws; response time — usually quoted as gray-to-gray (GtG) — describes how long one pixel takes to shift from one shade to another. A monitor advertised as "144Hz, 1ms" has a 6.94ms frame interval and a separate, much shorter, 1ms pixel-transition spec; the two numbers do not combine or cancel out.

GtG numbers are also measured under best-case conditions chosen by the manufacturer, often with aggressive overdrive settings that can introduce their own artifact called inverse ghosting (a pale halo trailing a fast-moving object). Some spec sheets instead quote MPRT (moving picture response time), which measures perceived blur rather than a single pixel transition and is not directly comparable to GtG. If a panel's real response time is slower than its frame interval, the previous frame can still be fading in as the next one starts, which shows up as motion blur or ghosting even at a high Hz.

Where refresh rate stops mattering

Refresh rate only helps up to the frame rate your GPU can sustain and the content you are watching. A 240Hz panel showing 60 FPS gameplay redraws each frame four times, which does nothing for motion clarity — matching or exceeding the Hz with real FPS is what makes the extra refresh rate worth anything. Film and most streamed video is delivered at 24-30 FPS regardless of monitor Hz, so refresh rate above 60Hz brings no benefit there. In competitive first-person shooters and fighting games, where seeing an opponent's movement a frame earlier can matter, 144-240Hz is the range most players and hardware reviewers treat as the practical sweet spot; going beyond it mainly serves input-latency-sensitive esports setups where every fraction of a millisecond is treated as an edge.

Refresh rate by use case

Use the table below as a starting point for how much refresh rate you actually need.

The higher the refresh rate goes, the smaller the frame-time gain from the next step up. The 60→120Hz jump (8.33ms) is the biggest single improvement available, and every step after it tends to feel smaller.