Monitors
Monitors are a very important choice based on your needs. Do you play a ton of FPS, RTS or Moba games competitively? Do you do graphic design, use Photoshop or work with color correction as well? You need to ask yourself what is important and buy within your budget.
Screen Size
There is a formula out there to tell you what size screen you should have based off of distance. Outside of Ultrawide 35 inch, most people are comfortable with 24-28 inch displays. Which means, unless you're gaming from a distance or a couch, a TV is not a good option but also for many other reasons.
Resolution
There are 5 popular resolution types and they are either 16:9 standard or 21:9 ultrawide
The higher the resolution, the more power it takes to run an application or game. If the display is less than 1920x1080 do not consider it unless it's a laptop (1366x768). Most but not all games support 16:9 and 21:9. 21:9 is generally geared towards people who game and enjoy high productivity where as 16:9 is for pure gamers and everyday people.
Refresh Rate
This is how many times an image can be refreshed on your screen every second. Ideally you want this to match your frame rate. This can deliver a fraction of a second advantage in competitive play if you are refreshing faster. Most displays refresh at 60Hz, but now we see 75, 100, 120 and 144. Higher refresh rate game play takes far more processing and graphical power, so if you're not getting a higher end system, a 144Hz monitor may not make sense. Unless all you play is CS: Go and League of Legends.
Response Time
What this is, is essential the time between a keystroke or mouse click and it appears on the screen. The goal is generally to be 6ms or lower, but there is also different ways of measuring it so be careful of marketing material. Higher refresh rate monitors tend to be lower unless they are freesync/gsync then it could go either way.
Vsync? Gsync vs Freesync
Before we we had the standards Gsync & Freesync (also called adaptive sync), we had Vsync or Vertical Sync. What that did was lock the frame rate output to never exceed the monitors refresh rate. This worked to eliminate screen tearing which happens when your graphics card feeds more frames per second than the display can output. But then when the frame rate drops below 60, it causes a stutter because the monitor has to then wait until the next frame. That is until now...
Gsync is a technology originally developed by NVidia several years ago that basically synced the monitors refresh rate and graphical output (in FPS) significantly smoother than Vsync. It originally was a box placed onto the monitor but is now built in. AMD has also developed a similar technology called Freesync. What these do is, basically sync the monitor and graphics card so each knows what the other is doing. As long as the output frames are between the range (varies based on monitor) the GPU and monitor will together output smooth frames that do not tear or stutter. This allows for an incredibly smooth experience and reduces the 1% and 0.1% lows in testing too!
IPS vs TN vs VA?
GN did an overview of these 3 seen here if you want a more in-depth overview feel free to read!
IPS (In-Plane Switching)
In my opinion is the best overall. While they do suffer from backlight bleeding and the blacks are not very black, the color reproduction is quite good, viewing angles up to 178* and can even refresh up to 100 frames per second (100Hz). While that is about the highest the technology allows for, it offers a more vibrant and colorful experience to the user.
VA (Vertical Alignment)
VA Panels have the same advantages as IPS except higher input lag is traded off for less backlight bleed. The input lag is sometimes quite noticable on a VA panel especially compared to a TN Panel. While these also can have higher refresh rates, IPS now goes up to 100Hz so that is no longer an advantage.
TN (Twisted Nematic)
While I never would want to game on a TN panel again there is a huge market for them. As low as 1ms response time and 144Hz refresh rate makes them the only choice for competitive players. The slight refresh advantage and lack of tearing at high refresh rates make them still quite popular.
Which to Buy?
To be honest, I am just giving examples. You need to read the reviews before buying. However these are general prices you can expect when buying a specific spec monitor. If you're using an AMD GPU, skip to the freesync section, you'll thank me later!
Under $100 IPS - 60Hz
Screen Size
There is a formula out there to tell you what size screen you should have based off of distance. Outside of Ultrawide 35 inch, most people are comfortable with 24-28 inch displays. Which means, unless you're gaming from a distance or a couch, a TV is not a good option but also for many other reasons.
Resolution
There are 5 popular resolution types and they are either 16:9 standard or 21:9 ultrawide
- 1920x1080 - 16:9
- 2560x1080 - 21:9
- 2560x1440 - 16:9
- 3440x1440 - 21:9
- 3840x2160 - 16:9
The higher the resolution, the more power it takes to run an application or game. If the display is less than 1920x1080 do not consider it unless it's a laptop (1366x768). Most but not all games support 16:9 and 21:9. 21:9 is generally geared towards people who game and enjoy high productivity where as 16:9 is for pure gamers and everyday people.
Refresh Rate
This is how many times an image can be refreshed on your screen every second. Ideally you want this to match your frame rate. This can deliver a fraction of a second advantage in competitive play if you are refreshing faster. Most displays refresh at 60Hz, but now we see 75, 100, 120 and 144. Higher refresh rate game play takes far more processing and graphical power, so if you're not getting a higher end system, a 144Hz monitor may not make sense. Unless all you play is CS: Go and League of Legends.
Response Time
What this is, is essential the time between a keystroke or mouse click and it appears on the screen. The goal is generally to be 6ms or lower, but there is also different ways of measuring it so be careful of marketing material. Higher refresh rate monitors tend to be lower unless they are freesync/gsync then it could go either way.
Vsync? Gsync vs Freesync
Before we we had the standards Gsync & Freesync (also called adaptive sync), we had Vsync or Vertical Sync. What that did was lock the frame rate output to never exceed the monitors refresh rate. This worked to eliminate screen tearing which happens when your graphics card feeds more frames per second than the display can output. But then when the frame rate drops below 60, it causes a stutter because the monitor has to then wait until the next frame. That is until now...
Gsync is a technology originally developed by NVidia several years ago that basically synced the monitors refresh rate and graphical output (in FPS) significantly smoother than Vsync. It originally was a box placed onto the monitor but is now built in. AMD has also developed a similar technology called Freesync. What these do is, basically sync the monitor and graphics card so each knows what the other is doing. As long as the output frames are between the range (varies based on monitor) the GPU and monitor will together output smooth frames that do not tear or stutter. This allows for an incredibly smooth experience and reduces the 1% and 0.1% lows in testing too!
IPS vs TN vs VA?
GN did an overview of these 3 seen here if you want a more in-depth overview feel free to read!
IPS (In-Plane Switching)
In my opinion is the best overall. While they do suffer from backlight bleeding and the blacks are not very black, the color reproduction is quite good, viewing angles up to 178* and can even refresh up to 100 frames per second (100Hz). While that is about the highest the technology allows for, it offers a more vibrant and colorful experience to the user.
VA (Vertical Alignment)
VA Panels have the same advantages as IPS except higher input lag is traded off for less backlight bleed. The input lag is sometimes quite noticable on a VA panel especially compared to a TN Panel. While these also can have higher refresh rates, IPS now goes up to 100Hz so that is no longer an advantage.
TN (Twisted Nematic)
While I never would want to game on a TN panel again there is a huge market for them. As low as 1ms response time and 144Hz refresh rate makes them the only choice for competitive players. The slight refresh advantage and lack of tearing at high refresh rates make them still quite popular.
Which to Buy?
To be honest, I am just giving examples. You need to read the reviews before buying. However these are general prices you can expect when buying a specific spec monitor. If you're using an AMD GPU, skip to the freesync section, you'll thank me later!
Under $100 IPS - 60Hz
- Asus VS229H: ~ $90
- BenQ GW2270: ~ $90
- LG 25UM58-P: ~ $160
- LG 29UM58-p: ~ $250
- LG 34UB67-B: ~ $290
- LG 34UC80-B: ~ $550
- LG 34UC88: ~ $600
- Dell U3415W: ~ $620
- Acer G257HU: ~ $230
- Dell U2518D: ~ $250
- LG 27UD58-B: ~ $300
- Dell P2415Q: ~ $340
- Acer CN246HL: ~ $200
- BenQ XL2411: ~ $250
- AOC AG241QX: ~ $260 (TN)
- Asus PB277Q: ~ $280 (TN)
- AOC G2260VWQ6: ~ $110 (TN/60Hz/1920x1080/1ms)
- LG 29UM69G-B: ~ $260 (IPS/75Hz/2560x1080/5ms)
- LG 24UD58-B: ~ $280 (IPS/60Hz/3840x2160/5ms)
- AOC AG241QX: ~ $350 (TN/144Hz/2560x1440/1ms)
- LG 34UM69G-B: ~ $380 (IPS/75Hz/2560x1080/1ms)
- LG 27UD68-p: ~ $410 (IPS/60Hz/3840x2160/5ms)
- Asus MG279Q: ~ $490 (IPS/75Hz/2560x1440/4ms)
- LG 34UB88-p: ~ $600 (IPS/75Hz/3440x1440/5ms)
- Asus ROG Swift PG248Q: ~ $400 (TN/180Hz/1920x1080/1ms)
- Dell S2417DG: ~ $430 (TN/165Hz/2560x1440/1ms)
- Dell S2716DG: ~ $450 (TN/144Hz/2560x1440/1ms)
- Acer XB271HK: ~ $580 (IPS/60Hz/3840x2160/5ms)
- Acer XB271HU: ~ $600 (IPS/165Hz/2560x1440/5ms)
- Acer Z35: ~ $700 (VA/200Hz/2560x1080/4ms)
- Acer Z35P: ~ $800 (VA/100Hz/3440x1440/4ms)
NVidia Supports Freesync???
As see here: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/1/7/18171631/nvidia-g-sync-support-freesync-monitors there are 12 Monitors that NVidia has certified that their GTX 10xx and RTX 20xx cards will support the open "Adaptive Sync" Standard. There is a "catch", that NVidia claims, black screens and flickers may happen in noncertified units