What to look for when buying a best gaming monitor
Choosing the right monitor for your gaming purpose is very important for most gaming fans as it will helps you play better in the game. So what’s the best and right gaming monitor? How to choose it?
A good monitor for gaming needs to have low input lag, a fast response time, and be as big as you can possibly afford. Having a large monitor might be more important to some than having a 1ms response time or even low input lag. Here’s a few terms you should know when buying a gaming monitor. If you would like to buy a gaming laptop, you should take a look at this post of considerations for buying a laptop.
Resolution
You must know that most computer monitors today come with full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution which is best for gaming. This number shows how many pixels are in your monitor first horizontally then vertically. Every monitor has a native resolution which is the total count of vertical and horizontal pixels on the panel. To get the ultimate gaming experience always remembers to run your games in native resolutions.
Response Time
This is the time takes for a pixel to go from black to white and back again. Manufacturers have realized the great potential of making state of the art monitors especially targeted serious gamers. Quite a few monitors now support 120hz as opposed to the standard 60hz doubling the refresh and enhancing the monitor’s image clarity.
The image displayed will be sharper and smoother especially during fast paced gaming. But to take advantage of 120hz when gaming you have to ensure your graphics card can produce enough FPS (100+) at resolutions as high as 1080p HD.
Most TN panel monitors have response times of 5ms or less with the top gaming monitors having a GTG response time of around 1ms. IPS monitors tend to have higher response times, but depending on the type of IPS panel. If you’re a competitive gamer, especially one that plays FPS games the monitors featuring 120 Hz will give you the advantage. Look for models no higher than 2-5ms if it is a TN panel and and no higher than 6ms if it is a S-IPS panel.
Input Lag
Most important for time-sensitive gaming like RTS and FPS – input lag is the lag in time that comes from when a command is inputted from your mouse and keyboard and then when it’s displayed on your screen. While manufacturers do not typically post input lag I’ll do my best to incorporate the numbers that I already know into this post.
Screen Size
If you spend many hours playing games a large sized quality monitor will definitely help you immerse yourself during gaming. Monitors are available as high as 30” intensifying the game experience even more. Large sized monitors are more expensive so if you’re on a budget a 24-27” screen will do it just fine. Ultimately it’s your choice and desktop space and viewing distance are also a factor to be considered.
Contrast Ratio
Contrast ratio is a measure of the difference in light intensity between the brightest white and the darkest black. Monitors with higher contrast ratio often have better color representation than monitors with a lower contrast ratio. It enables the monitor to display a deeper black which is great for dark scenes or passages and will give you a more natural and impressive game experience.
