How to Choose a Monitor for Gamers

 

Modern video games are an incredibly visual medium, and crisp, bright, and color-accurate displays make them even more immersive. But not all monitors are created equal. Whether you’re immersing yourself in imaginary worlds or ruthlessly climbing to the top of competitive ladders, you’ll need a monitor that supports high frame rates, low input lag, and adaptive sync technologies to keep pace with your GPU hardware without causing screen tearing or stutter. Here’s how to cut through the noise, narrow down your priorities, and find a monitor that can truly do it all.

The best gaming monitors provide image fidelity on par with very pricey TVs. That’s partly because they can deliver brightness and contrast that goes far beyond what a standard HD monitor is capable of, but they also employ processes like smart HDR to dynamically adjust the display to match the content on the screen or ambient lighting conditions. And with ultra-low input lag, they’re designed to keep up with your game’s action so you can see everything that’s happening on the screen and react accordingly.

If you do some type of professional work on your PC, you’ll want a monitor that’s built for precision, with a spec sheet that includes things like color accuracy, response times, and IPS panels that can handle a lot of movement. But if you’re just using your computer for gaming and maybe some light photo editing or video work, a gaming monitor with a lower resolution and pixel density may suffice.

A gaming monitor that doesn’t have a high refresh rate or support for adaptive sync is essentially useless. A monitor that can’t reliably match its frame rate to your graphics hardware will cause noticeable stuttering or Monitor for gamers screen tearing when you’re playing fast-paced shooters, race cars, or sports games. Fortunately, most good gaming monitors support refresh rates of 120Hz and up, with some supporting up to 144Hz or more.

A good gaming monitor will have multiple ports, allowing you to connect your PS5, Xbox Series X, or Nintendo Switch to one of the display’s HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 ports without needing adapters. This eliminates the lag that comes with using adapters and ensures that your consoles are receiving the optimal picture quality. It’s also a good idea to look for a monitor that has a 1ms MPRT or AMD FreeSync compatibility, which reduces screen tearing and blur.