Let’s be honest: shopping for a gaming monitor can feel like wading through mud. As soon as you decide to buy a display for gaming instead of regular productivity use, a whole host of new considerations come into the equation. Should you go for an LCD or OLED monitor? What about the differences between NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync? How about refresh rates?
Those are just some of the questions this guide aims to answer. In the process, my hope is to help you find the perfect gaming monitor for your budget.
Best gaming monitors for 2024
How we test gaming monitors
While I’ve not used every product recommended in our list, I have extensively tested dozens of gaming monitors in the past, including models with WOLED and QD-OLED panels. In the case of the Alienware monitor I highlight above, I bought one for myself with my own money. Separately, I spent dozens of hours over a two-year period researching gaming monitors to write the current version of this guide.
Factors to consider before buying a gaming monitor
LCD vs OLED
When shopping for a gaming monitor, you first need to decide if you want to go with a screen that has an LCD or OLED panel. For most people, that choice will come down to price; OLED gaming monitors are more expensive than their LCD counterparts. Even if money isn’t a concern, the choice might not be as straightforward as you think; both LCD and OLED panels come in a few different flavors, and knowing the differences between each type is important to making an informed decision.
LCD monitors come in three different varieties: twisted nematic (TN), vertical alignment (VA) or in-plane switching (IPS). For the most part, you want to avoid TN monitors unless you’re strapped for cash or want a monitor with the fastest possible refresh rate. TN screens feature the worst viewing angles, contrast ratios and colors of the group.
The differences between VA and IPS panels are more subtle. Historically, VA gaming monitors featured slower pixel response times than their TN and IPS counterparts, leading to unsightly image smearing. However, that’s improved in recent years. VA panels also frequently sport better contrast ratios than both TN and IPS screens. They’re not dramatically better than their IPS siblings on that front, but when contrast ratios aren’t an inherent strength of LCDs, every bit helps.
On the other hand, IPS panels excel at color accuracy and many offer refresh rates and response times that are as fast as the fastest TN panels. The majority of LCD gaming monitors on the market today feature IPS panels, though you will frequently find VA screens on ultrawide monitors.
What about OLED?
If you can afford one, OLED screens make for the best gaming monitors. The ability of organic light-emitting diodes to produce true blacks is transformational. Simply put, every game looks better when there isn’t a backlight to wash out shadow detail. Plus, you can experience true HDR with an OLED screen, something that LCDs aren’t known for.
Today, OLED screens come in two different flavors: WOLED and QD-OLED, with LG producing the former and Samsung the latter. I won’t bore you with the technical details of how the two panel types differ from one another other than to note both technologies broadly offer the same set of shortcomings.
Most notably, OLED monitors don’t get very bright. At best, the most capable models peak at around 250 nits when measuring brightness across the entire screen. I didn’t find this to be an issue in my testing, but your experience may vary depending on the ambient light in your gaming room.
If brightness is important to you, note that due to manufacturer tunings, different models can perform better than others, even if they feature the same panel from LG or Samsung. It’s worth comparing monitors in the same class to find the model that’s right for you.
Separately, almost all OLEDs feature sub-pixel layouts that produce text fringing in Windows. The latest generation of OLED panels from both LG and Samsung are much better in this regard, to the point where modern OLEDs are good enough for reading and image editing. However, it’s still worth going to your local Micro Center or Best Buy to see the model you want in person, as the text fringing issue is hard to capture in photos and videos.
Another (potentially more serious) issue is burn-in. Organic light-emitting diodes can get “stuck” if they display the same image for long periods of time. Every OLED gaming monitor you can buy today comes with features designed to prevent burn-in and other image retention issues. Provided you don’t use your new OLED monitor for eight hours of daily productivity work, I don’t think you need to worry about burn-in too much.
Screen size, resolution and aspect ratio
After deciding where you fall on the LCD vs OLED debate, you can start thinking about the size of your future gaming monitor. Personal preference and the limitations of your gaming space will play a big part here, but there are also a few technical considerations. You should think about size in conjunction with resolution and aspect ratio.
A 1440p monitor has 78 percent more pixels than a 1080p screen, and a 4K display has more than twice as many pixels as a QHD panel. As the size of a monitor increases, pixel density decreases unless you also increase resolution. For that reason, there are sweet spots between size and resolution. For instance, I wouldn’t recommend buying an FHD monitor that is larger than 24 inches or a QHD one bigger than 27 inches. Conversely, text and interface elements on a 4K monitor can look tiny without scaling on panels smaller than 32 inches.
You also need to consider the performance costs of running games at higher resolutions. The latest entry-level GPUs can comfortably run most modern games at 1080p and 60 frames per second. They can even render some competitive titles at 120 frames per second and higher — but push them to run those same games at 1440p and beyond, and you’re bound to run into problems. And as you’ll see in a moment, a consistently high frame rate is vital to getting the most out of the latest gaming monitors.
If your budget allows for it, 1440p offers the best balance between visual clarity and gaming performance. As for 1080p and 4K, I would only consider the former if you’re on a tight budget or you exclusively play competitive shooters like Valorant and Overwatch 2. For most people, the user experience and productivity benefits of QHD far outweigh the performance gains you get from going with a lower resolution screen.
Just a few years ago, 4K was not a viable resolution for PC gaming, but then NVIDIA came out with its 40 series GPUs. With those video cards offering the company’s DLSS 3 frame generation technology, there’s a case to be made that the technology is finally there to play 4K games at a reasonable frame rate, particularly if you exclusively play big, AAA single-player games like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 or enjoy strategy games like the Total War series. However, even with frame generation, you will need a GPU like the $999 RTX 4080 Super or $1,599 RTX 4090 to drive a 4K display. Plus, 4K gaming monitors tend to cost more than their 1440p counterparts.
If you want an ultrawide, note that not every game supports the 21:9 aspect ratio, and fewer still support 32:9. When shopping for a curved monitor, a lower Radius, or ‘R’ number, indicates a more aggressive curve. So, a 1000R monitor is more curved than an 1800R one.
Refresh rates and response times
And now, finally, for the fun stuff. The entire reason to buy a gaming monitor is for its ability to draw more images than a traditional PC display. As you shop for a new screen, you will see models advertising refresh rates like 120Hz, 240Hz and 360Hz. The higher the refresh rate of a monitor, the more times it can update the image it displays on screen every second, thereby producing a smoother moving image. When it comes to games like Overwatch, Valorant and League of Legends, a faster refresh rate can give you a competitive edge, but even immersive single-player games can benefit.
A monitor with a 360Hz refresh rate will look better in motion than one with a 240Hz or 120Hz refresh rate, but there are diminishing returns. At 60Hz, the image you see on your monitor is updated every 16.67ms. At 120Hz, 240Hz and 360Hz, the gap between new frames shortens to 8.33ms, 4.17ms and 2.78ms, respectively. Put another way, although a 360Hz monitor can display 50 percent more frames than a 240Hz screen in a given time period, you will only see a speedup of 1.14ms between frame intervals. And all that depends on your GPU’s ability to render a consistent 360 frames per second.
Ultimately, a fast monitor will do you no good if you don’t have a graphics card that can keep up. For example, with a 1440p 360Hz monitor, you realistically need a GPU like the RTX 4070 Super or RTX 4080 Super to saturate that display while playing competitive games like Overwatch 2 and Valorant.
There’s also more to motion clarity than refresh rates alone. Just as important are response times, or the amount of time it takes for pixels to transition from one color to another and then back again. Monitors with slow response times tend to produce smearing that is distracting no matter what kind of game you’re playing. Unfortunately, response times are also one of the more opaque aspects of picking the best gaming monitor for your needs.
Many LCD monitor manufacturers claim their products feature 1ms gray-to-gray (GtG) response times, yet they don’t handle motion blur to the same standard. One of the reasons for that is that many companies tend to cherry-pick GtG results that make their monitors look better on paper. The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) recently created a new certification program to address that problem, but the grading system is unwieldy and, as far as I can tell, hasn’t had a lot of pickup from manufacturers.
For now, your best bet is to turn to resources like Rtings and Monitors Unboxed when shopping for a new gaming monitor. Both outlets conduct extensive testing of every screen they review and present their findings and recommendations in a way that’s easy to understand.
FreeSync vs G-Sync
No matter how powerful your system, it will sometimes fail to maintain a consistent framerate. In fact, you should expect frame rate fluctuations when playing graphically-intensive games like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. For those moments, you want a gaming display with adaptive sync. Otherwise, you can run into screen tearing.
Adaptive sync technologies come in a few flavors. The two you’re most likely to encounter are AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync, and each has its own set of performance tiers. With G-Sync, for instance, they are – from lowest to highest – G-Sync Compatible, G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate.
The good news is that you don’t need to think too much about which adaptive sync technology a display supports. In the early days of the tech, it was rare to see a gaming monitor that offered both FreeSync and G-Sync since including the latter meant a manufacturer had to equip their display with a dedicated processor from NVIDIA. That changed in 2019 when the company introduced its G-Sync Compatible certification. In 2024, if a monitor supports FreeSync, it is almost certainly G-Sync Compatible, too, meaning you can enjoy tear-free gaming whether you’re using an AMD or NVIDIA GPU.
In fact, I would go so far as to say you shouldn’t make your purchasing decision based on the level of adaptive sync performance a monitor offers. As of 2024, the list of G-Sync Ultimate-certified displays is about two dozen models long, and some are a few years old now.
Inputs
Almost every gaming display on the market right now comes with at least one DisplayPort 1.4 connection, and that’s the port you will want to use to connect your new monitor to your graphics card. If you own a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, it’s also worth looking out for monitors that come with HDMI 2.1 ports, as those will allow you to get the most out of your current generation console.
A word about HDR
As fast and responsive gaming monitors have become in recent years, there’s one area where progress has been frustratingly slow: HDR performance. The majority of gaming monitors currently on sale, including most high-end models, only meet VESA’s DisplayHDR 400 certification. As someone who owned one such monitor, let me tell you it’s not even worth turning on HDR on those screens. You will only be disappointed.
The good news is that things are getting better, albeit slowly. The release of Windows 11 did a lot to improve the state of HDR on PC, and more games are shipping with competent HDR modes, not just ones that increase the brightness of highlights. Thankfully, with more affordable mini-LED monitors, like our top pick, making their way to the market, HDR gaming is finally within reach of most PC gamers.
Gaming monitor FAQs
Are curved monitors better for gaming?
It depends on personal preference. Many manufacturers claim curved monitors offer a more immersive gaming experience due to the way the display wraps around your field of vision. However, I find the edge distortion distracting, particularly when you increase the field of view in a game.
What aspect ratio should I look for in a gaming monitor?
The vast majority of 24-, 27- and 32-inch gaming monitors feature 16:9 aspect ratio panels, and that’s been the case for many years. In fact, nearly every game made in the last two decades supports 16:9 resolutions, such as 1,920 x 1,080 and 2,560 by 1,440, and if you buy a standard-sized monitor, you won’t need to worry about letterboxing.
In the case of ultrawides, 21:9 is the most common aspect ratio, with some very wide models sporting 32:9 panels. Among games, support for 21:9 and 32:9 resolutions is far from universal, so don’t be surprised if a game doesn’t fill the entirety of your screen.
Is OLED good for gaming?
OLED monitors are great for gaming. Not only do they offer excellent motion clarity and input latency, but they’re also easily the best displays for HDR gaming. If money is no object, and you primarily use your PC for gaming, you can’t go wrong with an OLED monitor.
How much does a good gaming monitor cost?
While you could easily spend more than $1,000 to obtain the best gaming monitor on the market now, the reality is that the budget and midrange categories have never been more competitive. In 2015, I spent $500 CAD to buy a 1080p monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate and TN panel. The budget AOC model I highlight above is not only cheaper than my first gaming monitor, but it also features a faster 180Hz refresh rate and a higher contrast VA panel.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/best-gaming-monitor-140008940.html?src=rss
