Are you passionate about playing games and dreaming of exciting and thrilling views?
You’re welcome. But the whole online market selling monitors are claiming they are offering the best one for you. ‘Gaming monitors’ are not just ones that allow you to see while you’re playing games. Any monitor could do it. And for you, you’ve stepped into a high-tech world, and you need to know at least the basics of what you need.
Here I’ve kept two options for you: read the whole article if you want to have a clear concept, or jump to the conclusion if you find it bothersome and expect short, summarized yet satisfactory tips.
Decide Your Need
Some people focus on smoother looks while many emphasize on color reproduction. Others just expect a great view in general. Some put their budget first. Others may have ‘money doesn’t matter’ opinion. We’ve taken all the attitudes and inclinations into consideration. Please sit back, read through, and decide which of the specifications described below meet your needs.
The specifications in General:
Below are some specifications that you should have a clear concept of. Try to understand them and consider them carefully before you decide.
Panel Type
If you prefer speed and performance, i.e., if you expect no lagging on the monitor, TN (Twisted Nematic) panels are best for you. They offer high refresh rates (my next point is refresh rate) and low motion blur. They are, however, not excellent color producers. They are also cheaper, saving you some money to spend somewhere else. On the other hand, spectacular color and the viewing experience will call for IPS (In-Plain Switching) panels. These monitors have, however, a bit less response time and are pretty expensive. They also consume more power than the TN panel. There are other important technological features related to panels that might attract you.
Refresh Rate
This is the count of how many times your monitor refreshes each second to update the new images. It has a great impact on how smoothly your monitor works.
60hz is the least or base refresh rate. There are also 120hz, 144hz, 240hz, or higher refresh rates, ensuring ever smoother picture quality. Anyone would see the difference in playability and quality when they start to experience a refresh rate of 120hz and more. 144hz, however, is the best as reported by most of the gamers. Any higher rate would require immensely powerful hardware support that is hard to achieve.
Resolution and Monitor Size
In short, the resolution and size of your monitor determines the display image sharpness. It is expressed in terms of the number of pixels on both the axes of the monitor. For a given resolution, the bigger the monitor is, the lesser the sharpness gets. Therefore, you cannot go for too large monitors. Besides, you’re not watching from some 2 or 3 yards far as you’d do with a television. Whatever size you choose, there are the following resolutions these days:
- 1080P or Full HD
- 1440P or 2k
- 2160p or 4k
2k and 4k are much expensive and require more powerful hardware to support while the Full HD is common and good for almost all purposes. In fact, a round 24-inch monitor with Full HD is enough to satisfy any pro gamer.
G-Sync and FreeSync
It’s about screen tearing in a game. Designed to ensure your smooth gameplay, these are just two approaches by Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia has developed a chip to add to the monitor. AMD uses additional functionality in the video card. Though FreeSync of AMD is more common, some of the advanced users reported having noticed a faint trailing shadow of the moving objects on the screen. This clearly means the chip integrated into the monitor gives better performance. However, those already having a GPU need not worry much and can take any monitor supporting the card.
HDR
The High Dynamic Range enables extra vivid colors. This means it displays subtle differences in close colors. This technology enables a monitor to show a wider range of the color spectrum than an ordinary monitor can show. As modern games are full of fascinating color magic, the monitors are necessarily adopting the technology.
Curved Screen Panel
Introduced in 2013, this type of monitor looks really neat and gives impressive viewing angles and, therefore, gained rapid and vast popularity. Curved monitors widen the field of view by curving the edges of the screen and thus making the image enter your peripheral vision range. Pretty realistic, isn’t it? There is another scientific reason as well. Images on the flat monitor appear a bit stilted. The curved screen corrects it and makes it appear flat. And above all, style does matter.
Your Budget
Yes. You need to watch your pocket. And as that’s all up to you, it’s you who’d decide how far you go. Some aristocratic and classy monitors can cost up to $1000, but one can have monitors of great quality with as little price as $150 to $300. From a certain point of performance, going to any higher price does not necessarily mean a comparative upgrade in quality. You might as well visit PCPZ for better conception.
Final Touch
Chasing better and better performance, from any point, is kind of a craze that’s probably going to buy you something that you cannot and don’t need to use completely. You’d, therefore, better go not for ‘the best’ but for an ‘optimal’ one. Consider the following points in general:
- If you play games for fun or play light games, just don’t bother for a ‘gaming monitor’. Any standard monitor is going to make you happy.
- If you decide to play professionally, choose from the two options below—
- For smoothness without any ‘lagging,’ you need a TN panel, 120hz to 144hz refresh rate, and 1080p resolution.
- For spectacular color quality compromising on smoothness, you’d probably want IPS panel, more than 144hz refresh rate, and 1080p resolution or above. But this configuration is going to be rather costly.
- HDR and Curved screen panels are just bonus and don’t really have any potential influence on being a ‘great gaming monitor’.
Follow the guidelines above to choose the perfect monitor for your gaming needs. Happy gaming!