+Fast refresh rate+Beautiful quad HD screen+Wide color gamut
Reasons to avoid
–Expensive–Glitchy profile system
The HP Omen 27i is, in many ways, a perfect midpoint. Its quad HD screen is the perfect midpoint between full HD and UHD; its 165 Hz refresh rate is a perfect midpoint between 60 Hz and 240 Hz; its design is the perfect midpoint between a gamer aesthetic and a more subdued productivity model. For the gaming crowd, the Omen 27i offers fluid frame rates; for graphic designers, the monitor offers accurate colors. It’s an elegant, functional monitor that’s equally at home playing the latest games or editing a photo roundup.
Bear in mind that the HP Omen 27i is pretty expensive, as flatscreen quad HD monitors go, and its profile software can get a little glitchy. Otherwise, though, there’s a lot to like in its straightforward design, high-resolution screen and excellent gaming capabilities.
+Bright, colorful screen+Helpful presets+Easy to set up and disassemble
Reasons to avoid
–Expensive–Takes up a ton of space
The Dell S3220DGF Gaming Monitor is enormous — and if you’re in the market for a 32-inch gaming monitor, that’s a good thing. This massive curved model features an extremely bright screen, fantastic color accuracy and support for HDR. TV shows and movies look good, but games look absolutely gorgeous — particularly action and adventure games with rich color palettes The curved screen makes most titles feel more immersive, and there are lots of pretty presets for your preferred genres.
Just bear in mind that even as 32-inch monitors go, the Dell S3220DGF is both large and heavy, so you’ll need a strong desk to support it. The monitor’s size and brightness also make productivity work fairly difficult, making this a gaming model first and foremost. But it’s easy to set up, provided you can lift it.
+Bright, vivid 38-inch curved display+Sharp 3840 x 1600 resolution+Low response time, high refresh rate
Reasons to avoid
–No built-in speakers–Doesn’t swivel
The LG 38GL950 delivers a kitchen sink of great features for folks willing to pay a premium price. This 36-inch, 3840 x 1600 curved display is incredibly immersive for cinematic games, and features Nvidia G-Sync and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate for keeping things smooth during more competitive titles. The monitor doesn’t reach full 4K resolution, but quad-HD should suffice for most people, especially those with cheaper PCs.
LG’s ultrawide display also sports a rear-facing ring of customizable RGB lighting, which is ideal for adding some ambient mood lighting to your command center. The 38GL950 is a breeze to set up, and delivered great brightness and color both in real world use and on our lab tests. LG’s ultrawide monitor is very pricey, and we wish it had USB-C, but this is a great premium display for folks seeking maximum immersion.
+Beautiful, polished design+Superb OLED panel+DisplayPort and multiple USB 3.0 ports
Reasons to avoid
–Crazy expensive–Complicated to enable features like HDR
The Alienware AW5520QF 55-inch is the best gaming monitor and big-screen TV in one device — for folks willing to spend about $4,000. This humongous OLED screen gives you the best of both worlds, delivering the size and picture quality of a 55-inch 4K TV alongside key gaming monitor features such as DisplayPort connectivity and fast 120Hz refresh rates. Hook it up to a console, or a living room PC, or both.
The AW5520QF’s high price tag may scare off folks on a budget, but if you do your PC gaming in the living room or want a premium monitor that can double as a great TV, Alienware’s mammoth screen is uniquely qualified to do the job. Remember: A computer can stream almost anything, so you’ll be able to watch, listen to or play whatever you want.
Determining the best gaming monitor for your needs comes down to three major factors: resolution, refresh rate and price.
How much resolution you need depends on how powerful your PC is. Extremely powerful machines can run games at 4K resolutions (3840 x 2160 pixels), which means you’ll probably want to pony up for a more elaborate monitor. Cheaper machines pair better with 1080p monitors, while those in-between can run at quad-HD resolutions.
Refresh rate is similar, in that more powerful machines will need monitors with higher refresh rates. While refresh rate and frames per second are not exactly the same thing, it’s useful to think of them in the same terms when choosing a monitor. Is your PC powerful enough to get 60 frames per second during gameplay? 120 frames per second? More? The higher the refresh rate, the higher number of frames per second the monitor can support.
Price is pretty self-explanatory. Just remember that more expensive monitors will be useful for longer periods of time. A good screen can last for a decade or more, and if you decide to buy or build a new machine in the future, you may not need to replace a monitor that’s sufficiently advanced.
How we test gaming monitors
To test our best gaming monitors, we employ a colorimeter and benchmarking software to measure a monitor’s color accuracy, contrast and brightness. A monitor’s brightness refers to how many nits of luminosity it can output; its color accuracy (or Delta-E) measures how lifelike its colors are; its color gamut represents how great a variety of the spectrum it can display. We can also measure a monitor’s latency, and try to push it to its limits in terms of game frame rates.
Qualitatively, we run each monitor through both productivity and gaming tests. You’re not going to switch monitors each time you need to open a word processor, watch a video or send an e-mail, so every monitor on this list must be sharp and responsive for everyday use. As far as gaming goes, we run each monitor through games in a variety of genres, including FPS, RTS, MOBA, RPG and MMO, in order to ensure that it doesn’t favor one genre at another’s expense.
