FPS vs Refresh Rate — What's the Difference, Really?
Two numbers, both counted per second, constantly confused — including by people selling you hardware. Here is the clean separation, what happens when the two disagree, and how to decide which side deserves your money.
The clean definitions
Frame rate, in frames per second, is how many new images your computer produces each second. It is a property of the software and the hardware doing the producing — the game engine, the GPU, the CPU feeding it. Refresh rate, in hertz, is how many times per second your display can show a new image. It is a property of the screen and everything between the computer and the panel. FPS is supply; Hz is capacity. A game can produce 300 FPS while a 60Hz monitor shows 60 of them, and a 240Hz monitor can sit mostly idle while a struggling game feeds it 45.
Frame time is the translator between the two languages: 1,000 divided by the rate. Sixty of either is 16.7 milliseconds; 144 is 6.9; 240 is 4.2. When an article says a change 'saves 9.7 milliseconds per frame', this is the arithmetic it is doing, and it is the honest way to compare steps, because milliseconds — not counts — are what your visual system experiences.
When they mismatch
FPS below Hz feels like the game itself is slow, because it is: the display simply repeats frames while it waits for new ones, and uneven delivery — stutter — appears when the production rhythm is irregular. FPS above Hz is subtler: the extra frames are never shown in full, which sounds wasteful, yet competitive players chase it anyway because the frame that is shown is newer — drawn from more recent input — trimming a few milliseconds of delay. Tearing lives in this territory too: without synchronisation, a display can begin showing a new frame halfway through drawing the old one, splitting the image along a horizontal seam.
Synchronisation technologies are the peace treaties. VSYNC forces production to wait for the display, removing tearing at the cost of delay and, when FPS dips below Hz, judder. Variable refresh — G-Sync and FreeSync — inverts the relationship and lets the display follow production instead, which is why a VRR monitor makes a fluctuating 70-to-110 FPS feel smoother than a fixed 120Hz panel showing the same stream.
Which should you upgrade first?
Measure before spending, because the answer is whichever side is currently the ceiling. If your games produce 55 FPS, a 240Hz monitor changes almost nothing; if your games produce 200 and your monitor shows 60, the GPU was never the problem. The browser tests here measure the display side exactly — the refresh rate test reports the rate your chain is truly running — while the FPS calculator estimates the production side for your hardware in real games. Put the two numbers side by side and the upgrade order usually announces itself.
As a rough map of the territory: below 60 on either side is a problem worth fixing first; 60 to 144 is where the large, clearly visible gains live; beyond 144 the returns shrink into milliseconds that matter most to competitive players and least to everyone else. Spend into the steep part of the curve, in the order your own two numbers dictate.
Frequently asked questions
Is 120 FPS on a 60Hz monitor pointless?
Mostly for smoothness — you will see 60 distinct frames — but not entirely: the displayed frames are fresher, shaving a little input delay. It is a small benefit bought with a lot of GPU heat; a higher-refresh monitor is the better spend.
Can FPS be higher than refresh rate?
Yes — production and display are independent. Games routinely render faster than the screen can show, which is where tearing and the input-delay argument come from.
What is variable refresh rate?
A display technology (G-Sync, FreeSync) where the monitor refreshes when a new frame is ready instead of on a fixed schedule, eliminating tearing and judder across a range of frame rates.
Which matters more for video — film and streaming?
Neither, much: video arrives at a fixed rate, usually 24, 30 or 60, and the display's job is simply to show it evenly. Rates that divide the content evenly — 120Hz for 24 FPS film — avoid the judder called 3:2 pulldown.