Sorry, I should have Googled before asking the question. I just did, and see that my monitor (Dell AW3821DW) supports only 85Hz over HDMI, but up to 144Hz over DisplayPort.
The laptop's spec page doesn't say what refresh rates are supported for external displays (except saying at least 60Hz): https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901
The laptop's spec page doesn't say what refresh rates are supported for external displays (except saying at least 60Hz): https://support.apple.com/en-us/111901
I'll buy a new cable right now :)