Best gaming monitor

Finding the best gaming monitor has long been a fixture of mine; There are so many different panel technologies and screen types that it can be difficult to know what the right computer screen is for you. It's well worth doing your homework because although without the best gaming monitor no matter what graphics card you are swinging, your games will look crap. But do not worry, we've chosen the best game monitors, in a variety of categories, to help you make your choice as easy as possible.

There are some questions you need to ask yourself first. Do you favor image quality over lightning pixel fast response? Or are you in the world of pro-gaming, competitor of esports and craves super-high TN technology monitor refresh rates rather than a quality panel? Do you want a traditional 16: 9 screen or have you been seduced by the ultra-scenic beauty of a 21: 9 aspect ratio? Or does it absolutely, positively have to be 4K?

So many questions ... But the fact that there are so many different options of computer monitor these days is as welcome as it can be disconcerting. For too long we have been severely limited in our choice of game screen - previously we have only picked up a large screen, with a high native resolution, as our bank accounts could cope. The technology simply did not move as fast as the rapid iteration that followed almost every component of our gaming PCs.

But as technical options have grown it is now more difficult to know which is the best game monitor at the moment. So we've put together our favorite screens together to give you a definitive selection of the best panels around a selection of a few different categories.

Best gaming monitor

Asus ROG Swift PG279Q

Approximately: $ 839 / £ 700.

It can be horribly expensive for a 14-inch 1440p monitor, but the Asus Republic of PG279Q players is balancing absolutely the best game panel ever made.

A few years ago, when the original Asus Swift first appeared on my desktop, with its 144Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync chops, I have to admit that it actually feels a bit discouraged. Of course, the smooth resolution of 1440p was impressive on the desktop, and Nvidia's frame synchronization technology removed the vibration that I did not even know was bothering me in the game, but it was still running on a TN panel. And not even the improved TN panels that accompanied the first download of affordable 4K monitors either.

That's a similar situation to the one I encounter with the latest ROG Swift PG248Q and Zowie XL2735, although they are at least geared towards super fast update rates and response times for competitive gaming as the raison d'être for their TN inclinations. A fast refresh rate may be great, but when asked to spend almost the same amount of money on a TN panel as it is for this excellent - and still fast - IPS display there is really no competition.

The biggest change with the current-gen 27-inch Swift from the original is this impressive IPS-type panel and the difference is huge. It is not strictly speaking of a monitor in the switching plane (IPS), which is due to brand restrictions not the technical limitations. The Optronics AU panel that Asus has used is called Advanced Hyper Angle View (AHVA) display, but for all intents and purposes, performs exactly the same as an IPS made by LG.

Which means it looks absolutely gorgeous. Clarity is excellent, colors are vibrant and accurate, white levels are typically impressive for an IPS display and really impressive black reproduction.

But it's not just the panel that separates it from the rest - especially considering that the also awesome Acer Predator XB271HU uses the same AUO display - the slim bezel frames the monitor beautifully, the stand is solid and controls, via joystick Five-way, are the best you can find in today's monitors.

It is also a clock slightly higher than its Swift brothers too, reaching a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz and, before saying anything, can really tell the difference between 144Hz and 165Hz at a glance. And the PG279Q continues to run G-Sync as well.

So while you can baulk in price, 1440p resolution means you can hit fast game speeds with a variety of graphics cards at different price points, and you will not find such a beautifully calibrated game panel This side of a Dell $ 5,000 OLED.

Best gaming monitor runner-up

Acer Predator XB271HU

Approximately: $ 991 / £ 750.

Unless you have this Acer Predator sitting side by side with the Asus Swift PG279Q you would be hard pushed to find any difference in image quality between them. That is perhaps not much of a surprise given that they use the same AU Optronics panel. The Asus however has been better set out of the box, its stand and surrounds are nicer and try as I might. I could not get the Acer screen to look as good as the Asus. That said, if you can find the Acer significantly cheaper than the Asus, you still have a beautiful monitor for the game.

The best 4K monitor

LG 27UD68P

Approximately: $ 550 / £ 391.

If you were looking for an affordable 4K monitor until recently that meant opting for a TN panel. 4K IPS panels were thin on the ground and super-expensive. Things have changed however and this stunning-affordable 27-inch LG is a great 4K monitor at a great price. And, thanks to the recent price cuts, LG 27-incher is now even more affordable.

It uses LG's proprietary IPS technology to deliver the exceptional color rendering expected of that panel technology, combining it with excellent contrast levels. Even more impressive is the fact that its contrast performance does not lead to the weaker black levels we've come to expect from a large number of IPS displays. The image that the LG 27UD68P produces is excellent and with the large amount of pixels at its disposal are pin-sharp and crystal clear.

There is, of course, the question that 27 inches feels a bit small for a 4K display. You can use the Windows scale to increase the size of the text and icons, but I am left with the confusion you can enter. For me, it seems counterintuitive to buy a monitor with such a high resolution and immediately nerf its clarity. But, for the money, the LG is still able to offer a great 4K experience.

The other advantage is that it supports AMD's FreeSync frame synchronization technology. That lets you cut the vibration you get in the game with VSync - by using AMD compatible cards - and creates a beautifully smooth game world for everything you play in it. You will need a powerful (or actually two) graphics card if you want to play on the native screen resolution, however, which is why I still can not honestly recommend a 4K monitor as the absolute best game display.

The LG 27UD68P is also a pretty smart device. The curved bracket allows a full range of monitor adjustment and the borderless bevel makes for a very thin environment for your games as well. There's nothing to distract your eye from Overwatch's accelerating action here.

There are some exciting options on the horizon, with Philips set to launch a new curved 40-inch 4K monitor at the same price as its 32-inch offers, but at this price now, the LG is my choice for the best 4K monitor Around Right now. You can, of course, pay thousands of dollars for a high end option, but only those with very deep pockets can go down that route.

Best monitor of 4K runner-up

Philips Brilliance BDM3275UP

Approximately: $ 1,120 / £ 850.

For some reason, the 32-inch Philips is difficult to locate in the United States for a non-insane price. There is availability on Amazon, but for about ten times more than it's worth. Which is a shame, as this 10-bit IPS monitor makes it a good monitor for 4K games and in the UK it is available for a decent price also outside Amazon. Due to its 32 inches running without the Windows Scale options it is fine and that additional scale actually shows 4K game fidelity. It does not have a screen as good as the LG, so I still get my vote despite its smaller size.

Best Ultra Wide Monitor

Asus ROG Swift PG348Q

Approximately: $ 1,100 / £ 990.

The Asus ROG Swift from G-Sync-toting, with its 100Hz refresh rate and typically bright Asus monitor controls, is now our choice for the best ultrawide gaming monitor you can buy. It is still very expensive, but with its recent price declines and sales prices it is competitive with the best of the rest of the 34-inch brigade.

The slight additional price premium is easier to justify now, despite the Acer screen then using the same panel exactly without the extra 25Hz speed and Nvidia silicon sync frame. The stunning Asus PG348Q will not disappoint you, especially if you're a GeForce player looking for the G-Sync fix.

There is a slight curve in the 3440 x 1440 IPS panel and, combined with that 21: 9 extreme aspect ratio, makes it one of the most immersive game monitors you can buy right now. Given the choice I find it really difficult to decide between this and the excellent Asus ROG PG279Q as my absolute favorite, but the higher 16: 9 screen refresh rate just gives me the edge for me. Alone.

Although it has to be said, the new Samsung Ultrawide curved CF791 monitors look absolutely beautiful with their Quantum Dot filter that boosts their range of colors and GSync versions on the road next year ... There is another competition that comes to shake the Things though, with LG Offering the largest ultrawide screen ever released to the consumer market - a 38-inch 21: 9 curved monitor with a native resolution of 3800 x 1600.

Best ultra-wide runner-up

Acer Predator XR341CK

Approximately: $ 883 / £ 944.

The Acer Predator was once our favorite ultrawide monitor due to the fact that it gave us almost as good an image as the beautiful Asus ROG panel, but at a much lower price. Image quality is still there, but the price differential is not. Now they are so close to price I would have to say that the Asus is the one to go. The Acer XR341CK is still a large screen with a 75Hz upgrade and a beautiful IPS, 3440 x 1440 panel, but it is the price of the ticket should come down. Be careful with the Acer XR342CK however I recently had the opportunity to check it out and there is something fuzzy going on with your screen - not all predators are the same ..

Best budget monitor

BenQ GW2270H

Approximately: $ 105 / £ 81.

You can get some seriously cheap 1080p monitors these days, but our recommendation would be that you absolutely must steer clear of anything labeled as a twisted nerve panel (TN). It is the cheapest screen technology to manufacture, but it also massively sacrifices image quality over other options. This BenQ GW2270H is one of the best high definition screens, not TN, Full HD that you will find and is able to present an impressive image as well.

The compromise here (there must always be one in the budget area) is the BenQ is a tiny 21.5 inches across the diagonal. However, the trade off is that you get a decent vertical alignment panel (VA), best after a bona fide IPS screen. Color reproduction is not as vibrant as the more expensive technology but it has much greater clarity and depth than you will get even with the best TN monitors without any of the wash looks that ruin that cheapest screen technology.

Because it's only 21.5 inches of native 1080p resolution gives you a nice and tight pixel tone, almost on par with the likes of a 14-inch 1440p monitor. You will have to do a little fiddling with the settings of the box to get the best picture. The low contrast level is a little flattened, which will make it difficult to distinguish details in darker scenes, but a small adjustment of the RGB range in the graphics drivers can alleviate many of the problems.

So while the BenQ GW2270H is not going to turn on the world of video games, and will never produce the image quality you get from the highest screens we've seen, for the money is a fantastic monitor li'l.

Best budget monitor runner-up

AOC i2369v

Approximately: $ 110 / £ 120.

If you want to pay a little more you can get up to the IPS level, and increase the real estate screen as well. The AOC uses a 1080p and 6-bit IPS panel and has a slightly longer response time and a wider pixel pitch than BenQ, but you get more color vitality. The AOC controls can be a bit scaly, and they do not give you much room to move when it comes to making your own adjustments, but this is as cheap as an IPS screen you will find.

How to Buy a Game Monitor

When it comes to choosing a new gaming monitor everything is about your graphics card, or maybe your next graphics card. If you are looking to upgrade your old graphics card to something like the new Nvidia GTX 1050 there is no point in dropping a load of cash on a costly 1440p or 4K monitor.

Likewise, if you have spent much of a graphics card like the $ 1,200 GTX Titan X, a 10-inch 10-inch panel will not let your new and funky GPU shine. Although if you are looking to upgrade your PC hardware at the same time, or soon after buying your monitor, it pays to think ahead of time what your next GPU purchase will be able to.

The key here is to make sure you are able to play the native resolution of your monitor. Since switching to flat panel display technology monitors are no longer able to choose and choose their resolution, and if they operate below the native resolution of a screen they end up with slightly fuzzy, indistinct images. This is why, if you are not blessed with a super high-end GPU, it probably is not worth the while to step up to a 4K monitor yet. Sure, you can reduce your in-game setup so your system actually works at 1080p or 1440p, but you're losing the fidelity you'd get when running natively on a 4K monitor.

Bigger is better, but not always ...

If you are thinking of upgrading to a 4K screen, then absolutely go for a screen size as large as you can afford. My best 4K experience was with an old 40 inch VA panel, now discontinued. He used a screen pulled directly from one of his 4K TVs and the real estate screen meant that, at the native resolution of 3840 x 2160, he is getting a pixel tone (the physical size of the individual points that make up an image) that It's not that different from a 14-inch 1440p panel. Philips is bringing a curved 40-inch 4K monitor to the party soon, and that curve could make a big difference on such a large desktop monitor.

The first 4K monitor I used for long-term testing was a 24-inch Dell. Despite having an absolutely impressive IPS panel, with beautiful colors and incredible clarity, running at 4K was almost impossible to read anything. And then the Windows escalation was atrocious, not just generally bad, as it is today.

On the flipside however, going for a large screen with a low native resolution can also lead to blurry ol 'images as well. With a 27-inch 1080p screen, the pitch of the pixels ends up being quite large, losing the freshness of a more balanced panel. As in all parts of PC hardware, it is a balancing act.

Technology panel

Choosing the right display screen technology comes at a scaled price scale. The more powerful the technology panel, the harder it is to produce and the more these costs are passed on to the consumer. In this world of dark acronyms, what do the different options offer?

Nematic Twisted (TN)

TN panels are the cheapest type of screen technology you will find these days and, for the most part, shown. Monitors using TN suffer from poor viewing angles (leading to a strange coloration if they are not sitting directly in front), poor color reproduction across the board, and a washed general appearance. The latest TN screens that came with the first affordable 4K screens were much better, but still not a patch on the more expensive panel technologies. We have started to see the electronic-centered game screens that are producing Zowie and Asus, who deliberately use TN panels for their monitors because of their high refresh rates and super fast response times.

Vertical Alignment (VA)

This is the next step up, and is actually an advance over TN. You get much better colors and the viewing angles are excellent too, VA panels also usually offer the best black levels too, even on the IPS screens.

Quantum Dot (QD)

The technology sponsored by Samsung does not offer a different type of panel. Quantum Dot monitors continue to be LCD backlit LED displays, but use a new type of filter that improves the color depth of the screen. That gives them a wider color gamut with the latest Samsung QD monitors that offer 125% of the sRGB color space. Currently QD only applies to VA panels, but that allows them to have stunning blacks and better color accuracy than other IPS displays.

On the Switching Plane (IPS)

Up to LG and Samsung actually find a way to manufacture OLED screens in an affordable IPS panels are going to be the top of the tree technology monitor. They offer the best colors and excellent levels of contrast also, although they can suffer from a weaker black reproduction. As a technology made by LG, they own the IPS brand, which has meant that Samsung and later, AU Optronics (two of the other large screen manufacturers) have had to create their own IPS technology, PLS and Advanced Hyper Angle View (AHVA), respectively. But all three essentially offer the same thing.

Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)

This is the absolute pinnacle of visualization technology and the Holy Grail for the future of game monitors. Although it is a long way from being in any affordable way. OLED TVs have become much cheaper, but we keep talking for thousands here. The most important thing about OLED is that it is an automatic emission technology - each individual pixel is its own light source. This means that OLED screens do not need LED backlighting. And that in turn means unmatched contrast levels and true blacks, not just darker shades of gray. OLED screens should also have incredible quick response times too, which potentially makes them the best choice for games.

Refresh rates

The update frequency is the number of times per second that the monitor will update the image that appears on the screen. So at 60Hz you get a new image 60 times every second. That sounds like a lot, so can you really see the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz at a glance? The answer is an unequivocal yes. In fact, you can detect even small increases in refresh rate - a 75Hz screen is noticeably softer than a 60Hz option, so a 165Hz or 200Hz panel is as soft as a kitten with a smoking jacket. velvet.

G-Sync or FreeSync?

I did not even register the little judder using VSync to introduce its gaming experience, until Nvidia's G-Sync removed it; I had grown accustomed to that. However, VSync has been a necessary evil, reducing the tear you get when the monitor refresh rate is trying to keep up with the frames spewing out the GPU.

Frame synchronization technologies, such as G-Sync and FreeSync, allow the GPU to communicate directly with the screen and only deliver a full frame to the screen when ready to display it to the viewer. That results in scratch scratch and none of the shaking that would otherwise get using VSync. And it creates a very smooth gaming experience too, one that is difficult to readjust if you switch to a monitor without that support.

G-Sync is exclusive to Nvidia, and is also the most expensive option as it involves a bit of Nvidia silicon license that is added to the electronics of a monitor. AMD FreeSync on the other hand is linked to the Adaptive Sync feature of DisplayPort 1.2a so you only need the monitor to be compatible with later specs. Both require a DisplayPort connection to work.