The best gaming monitor 2014

However, it has a slow response time in dark transitions, meaning you'll see some black smearing, typical of VA panels. It has a high contrast ratio, so it's a good choice for dark room gaming. Unfortunately, it has a terrible local dimming feature that causes intense blooming around bright objects.

We've also read reports of the backlight flickering with VRR enabled in certain types of content, but we haven't noticed that problem with our unit, so your experience may be different. It has okay ergonomics, but the stand has a narrow swivel range. Overall, it's one of the best gaming monitors we've tested.

The image remains accurate no matter where you sit, and it has excellent ergonomics that make it easy to share your screen with a friend. In terms of gaming performance, it has exceptional motion handling, native FreeSync support, and low input lag. It gets bright enough to fight glare in a well-lit room, but you need a firmware update for it to get bright and have the VRR support work at its full range.

If you're in the market for the best gaming monitor with native FreeSync support, you can't go wrong with the Samsung, but if you're a fan of wide viewing angles, then check out the Acer.

It's an excellent gaming monitor with a 27 inch screen and a p resolution. Input lag is exceptionally low, and the response time at max refresh rate is fantastic, remaining excellent even when gaming at 60Hz. It has a backlight strobing feature to improve motion clarity, but you can't use it with variable refresh rate VRR enabled. It's a fairly versatile monitor with good performance overall.

It's well-built, and it has good ergonomics so that you can place the screen in an ideal viewing position. It has wide viewing angles, making it great for co-op gaming, and it provides good visibility in well-lit rooms thanks to its great reflection handling and high peak brightness.

It has a few extra features, like built-in speakers, RGB bias-lighting, and a USB hub so that you can charge your devices while gaming. Sadly, our unit has terrible out-of-the-box color accuracy, so you may need to get it calibrated to enjoy it to the fullest.

That said, this can also vary between units. It also can't display very deep blacks, and our unit has poor black uniformity, so it's not the best choice for a dark room. It has a lower p resolution compared to p on the ViewSonic Elite XGQG , so images don't look as sharp, but that allows your graphics card to achieve a higher frame rate.

You can achieve the max Hz refresh rate over a DisplayPort connection, and it has incredibly smooth motion handling and low input lag.

Even at lower refresh rates, the response time remains quick, and the input lag doesn't increase. It has great ergonomics and wide viewing angles if you want to share the screen with someone else. Unfortunately, it doesn't support FreeSync at all.

If you want the best monitor for gaming with native G-SYNC support, you can't go wrong with the ViewSonic, but if you prefer something with a much higher refresh rate for esports gaming, then check out the Dell.

The best gaming monitor with a 4k resolution we've tested is the Gigabyte M32U. It's an excellent gaming monitor with a large 32 inch screen that provides enough screen space for an immersive gaming experience. Also, the high resolution delivers crisp images and fantastic text clarity. It has a Hz panel, which you can achieve over a DisplayPort connection. However, it doesn't support full-bandwidth HDMI 2. Motion looks exceptionally smooth thanks to the quick response time, and it has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience, as long as you update it to the latest firmware.

It does by showing a new frame as soon as the GPU has one ready. FreeSync AMD's take on frame synching uses a similar technique as G-Sync, with the biggest difference being that it uses DisplayPort's Adaptive-Sync technology which doesn't cost monitor manufacturers anything.

Ghosting When movement on your display leaves behind a trail of pixels when watching a movie or playing a game, this is often a result of a monitor having slow response times. Response Time The amount of time it takes a pixel to transition to a new color and back.

Often referenced as G2G or Grey-to-Grey. Slow response times can lead to ghosting. A suitable range for a gaming monitor is between milliseconds. TN Panels Twisted-nematic is the most common and cheapest gaming panel. TN panels tend to have poorer viewing angles and color reproduction but have higher refresh rates and response times. IPS In-plane switching, panels offer the best contrast and color despite having weaker blacks. IPS panels tend to be more expensive and have higher response times.

The result is more vivid colors, deeper blacks, and a brighter picture. Peak Brightness This refers to the maximum brightness of a monitor or television and is measured in nits. Ultrawide Shorthand for monitors with aspect wider aspect ratios like or Resolution The number of pixels that make up a monitor's display, measured by height and width.

For example: x aka p , x 2K , and x 4K. He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.

Included in this guide: 1. Image 1 of 4. Image 2 of 4. Image 3 of 4. Image 4 of 4. LG 27GNB. Specifications Screen size: inch. Panel type: Nano IPS.

Aspect ratio: Resolution: x Response time: 1 ms. Refresh rate: Hz. Weight: Reasons to avoid - Oversaturated sRGB mode. Gigabyte G27Q. Panel type: IPS. Refresh rate technology: FreeSync Premium. Reasons to avoid - Bland design - Basic stand. Dell SDGM. A classic, affordable mix of inch frame and p resolution.

Panel type: VA. Weight: 9. Reasons to avoid - p and Hz is a very nice combo - Strong inherent contrast from VA panel - Affordable for a gaming panel.

Image 1 of 5. Image 2 of 5. Image 3 of 5. Image 4 of 5. Image 5 of 5. Alienware 25 AWHF. Weight: 7. It also sports three USB ports and a p resolution. It shares the somewhat narrow viewing angles of its more expensive sibling, but again an adjustable stand makes it perfectly suited for the average PC gaming setup.

The Best Monitors for Gaming. Get the best gaming monitor for your money. By Molly K. McLaughlin Updated: 16 Aug pm.

While it earns an Editors' Choice award, it doesn't have many features, and its pixel response rate is 5ms; higher than the previous two BenQ models, but still an acceptable figure.

It also has the light bleed you'll often see with IPS displays, and it lacks USB ports, but it's a solid choice for the price, especially if you spot a sale.

It also offers a sharp picture, generous port options, and a fully adjustable stand. Because there was no panel on the market that met this criteria. This commitment to offering something unique and innovative shows the commitment ASUS and ROG bring to the passionate community of PC gamers who have been asking for such a display.

G-SYNC offers the most advanced and optimal method of communicating information from the GPU and its frame buffer to the monitor to ensure the best level of fluidity, response and overall synchronization. It is a game changer in how you will play and experience PC games.

Combine this with the previously noted specifications and you can easily see how the SWIFT will be the PC gaming monitor to rule them all. The SWIFT also features design touches that further the experience beyond that of pure specifications such as smart cable management, a 5 way easy adjust joystick to navigate the OSD and make monitor adjustments. This makes it an excellent choice for users considering multi monitor setups.

The SWIFT has a specialized implementation offering great flicker free performance under normal operation mode. It utilizes DC — Direct Control for backlight control to achieve this.