Best Gaming Monitors of 2023

What is a gaming monitor and how does it work?

Gaming motors are similar to other types of monitors, but they are designed to be of higher quality. Many manufacturers add LED lighting to these devices. They are made for professional use and with high expectations in mind to provide you with the best video game experience. These devices are usually much bigger than traditional monitors, as they can be from 24 to 50 inches wide.

What are the types of gaming monitors?

Currently, there are three different types of gaming monitor panels: TN, IPS, and VA. However, the most common types are TN and IPS.

TN (Twisted Nematic)

This type usually has a lower color reproduction. This means that the colors can be slightly less sharp compared to IPS and VA panels. The contrast and brightness can also change depending on what angle you are viewing the screen.

However, TN panels have a quicker response time than the other two, only 1 ms. One pixel takes one millisecond to respond to the change of color. This is why professional gamers often go for this type of panel rather than IPS or VA.

VA (Vertical Alignment)

This type of gaming panel has the best contrast, which, according to tests, allows it to produce very deep shades of black, making the VA panel achieve much more realistic and vivid details and colors. Unfortunately, VA panels have the worst response time compared to the other two.

However, this is not a problem for most gamers because of the intense colors. If you are a competitive gamer or play very quick games, you might want to consider one of the other two types of panels.

IPS (In-Plane Switching)

IPS panels have much more precise and consistent colors but do not have contrast as high as VA panels. They also have the best viewing angles, which means that you can see the screen well from any angle. However, the response time is a bit limited; it is not as fast as TN panels and not as slow as VA panels. The main problem that users find with IPS panels is the brightness, as there is usually a light at the corners of the screen.

Advantages and disadvantages of a gaming monitor

Once you start using gaming monitors, tests show that the difference between them and regular monitors is very evident. In the list below we have provided the most important advantages and disadvantages of gaming monitors, according to opinions of experts and customers.

Advantages

Shorter response time
Higher refresh rate
Better image quality
Higher range of colors

Disadvantages

Expensive

Shopping Criteria for Gaming Monitors

If you have gotten to this part in the article, you are probably still considering buying a gaming monitor. Congratulations! Before proceeding with your purchase, you need to keep certain shopping criteria in mind. Based on tests and customer and expert opinion, those are the refresh rate, input lag, response time, size, resolution, built-in technology, and the extra characteristics that come with the model. To help you make the best choice, we have expanded on these criteria in the section below.

Refresh rate
Input lag
Response time
Size
Resolution and Dimensional Relationship
Built-in Technology
Extra Characteristics

Refresh rate

Currently, gaming monitor manufacturers usually offer the following: 60 Hz, 75 Hz, 100 Hz, 120 Hz, 144 Hz, and even up to 240 Hz. Today, most monitors are 60 Hz. You might be wondering what that means. This is the monitor’s refresh rate. 60 Hz means that your monitor will refresh the screen once every 16.7 milliseconds. Therefore, a 120 Hz screen will refresh the screen two times faster or every 8.33 milliseconds. The higher the refresh rate is, the faster the screen will be refreshed. This is especially important with action games or other games where there is a lot of movement.

Input lag

The input lag is extremely important when it comes to games like FPS, MOBA, or RTS. You might be wondering what input lag means exactly. It is, generally, the time lapse between when you click a button on your joystick or mouse and when you see a reaction on the screen. This time is measured in milliseconds (ms.)

This information is usually not included in the product description, so you might have to look for the input lag in forums. Generally, the gamer community opinion is that the input lag should be, at most, 30 ms. Fortunately, most gaming monitors have an input lag of 10ms or less.

If you are a gamer yourself or you plan to dive into the gaming world, you will need a great monitor.

Response time

First of all, you should not confuse the input lag with the response time. The response time is how fast the pixels change from white (active) to black (inactive) and active again. This is often measured as gray to gray (GTG or G2G). The less time measured in milliseconds, the better.

On the other hand, tests have shown that the longer the response time is, the more ghosting you will experience. The response time in pixels refers to how fast the monitor can change from one image to another once it has received the information of the new image. The response time completely depends on the type of panel that you are using. In customer and expert opinion, if you usually play very competitive games, you should choose the TN panel, as it offers a response time as low as 1 ms. If you are not a competitive gamer, 3 to 5 ms will be more than enough.

Size

This size of the monitor is usually measured in inches. Remember that tests and reviews show that the size has nothing to do with the performance of your gaming monitor. If you are playing games on a 15-inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, it is the same as using this same resolution on a 29-inch screen.

The perfect size essentially depends on you and what you like the most. However, the majority of professional gamers’ opinion is that they should normally use 23 to 27-inch monitors. You should also keep in mind that if your monitor is big, you should stay farther away from it when playing to prevent hurting your eyes.

Resolution and Dimensional Relationship

The resolution that you need depends on the game system that you will use. However, tests show that you will need a strong GPU configuration to achieve the best resolution without affecting the performance of the monitor. If you want resolutions that are higher than 1920 x 1080, you will need a GPU configuration with more than 4 GB of RAM.

When it comes to the dimensional relationship, in most gamers opinion 16:9 is the best. This amount of dimensional relationship allows for a wider FOV (field of view,) which will give you a slight advantage against your opponents. We recommend a resolution of 1080 px and a dimensional relationship of 16:9.

Built-in Technology

You will notice that some gaming monitors have AMD FreeSync or NVIDIA G-SYNC technology built-in already. This technology offers a great refresh rate that will allow the monitor to adjust its refresh rate according to your GPU. Testing has shown that this is ideal as it will eliminate any lag that you may experience.

To allow this function to work, you will need a compatible AMD card for FreeSync monitors or a compatible NVIDIA card for G-SYNC monitors. However, some FreeSync monitors are compatible with G-SYNC and will work with NVIDIA cards.

The difference between these two types of technology is that G-SYNC has an integrated model that guarantees a wide frequency range and less input lag. However, this may increase the price of the monitor. On the other hand, FreeSynce does not make the item more expensive.

Extra Characteristics

Gaming monitors can also include extra parts or characteristics that can be very useful. Some monitors include internal speakers that are usually not of good quality but can work as a backup. Also, manufacturers often design their monitors to be appealing to gamers like you.

FAQ

What type of panel should I buy?

The answer to this question depends greatly on how you will use your gaming monitor. If you are using it for your leisure time or competitive gaming, a TN panel will be perfect. As we have mentioned above, this type gives you a response time of only 1ms. Another advantage is that these panels are usually more inexpensive than the others as they are cheaper to manufacture. However, the colors do not look very good from certain angles. On the other hand, if you are planning on using your panel for professional gaming, tests have shown that you should get an IPS panel, as they have much brighter and more vivid colors. You can notice much smaller details with this type of panel. Finally, if you are looking for normal use, a VA panel is enough.

Should I get a gaming monitor if I already have a regular monitor?

The answer is yes, of course. Regular monitors have not been made to provide you with the best gaming experience and their use is very limited. They do not have amazing benefits like high-resolution or short refresh rates that are necessary in the gaming world. Regular monitors also do not have short response times or high latencies. If you use one of these monitors instead of a gaming monitor, tests have shown that you are likely to experience ghosting (blurry images) or lagging.

Best Gaming Monitor 2023 • 7 Gaming Monitors Reviews

Gaming Monitor Leaderboard 2023