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A gaming monitor is arguably one of the most important parts of your gaming setup, sometimes even more so than your CPU or GPU, as a bad monitor, with low resolution, washed-out colors, and sub-par brightness will absolutely ruin your gaming experience. Also, a good quality monitor will reduce eye strain over longer periods.
A lot of people, while building their 'gaming' setup, skip over the importance of a good gaming monitor and ignore the overall value it provides.
Now whether you are bunny-hopping on Mirage at 1080p low settings, with a GT 1030 or wandering through night-time Saint-Denis in 4k Ultra on an RTX 3090, a good quality, bright, and vibrant gaming monitor with high enough resolution, high refresh rate along with a low response time will provide you with the best possible experience time and again.
Things to consider while buying a gaming monitor
1) The Aspect ratio
Before deciding on anything else, the first thing you should consider is what aspect ratio you want your gaming monitor to be. With the most common being 16:9, a lot of gamers prefer a wider 21:9 gaming monitor for that extra horizontal field of view.
2) The Resolution
This is referred to the pixel count of the display. Higher resolutions will look sharper while also requiring a higher GPU grunt. Although 1080p is pretty much the standard, enthusiasts and folks with deeper pockets prefer 4k, with 1440p (also called QHD) being the middle child.
3) The Refresh rate
This means the number of times the monitor produces (or "refreshes") a new image per second, and is measured in Hz. A higher refresh rate monitor will feel smoother. Although 60hz is enough for single-player games, 120hz/144hz is almost necessary for multiplayer/competitive games, while 240hz and higher are reserved for e-sports gaming monitors.
4) The Response Time
This refers to the period of time between when the monitor receives an image and displays it on screen. Lower the response time, more responsive the monitor will feel. Anything <5ms GTG response time is good enough for 120hz/144hz, while 1ms or <1ms response time is mostly needed for e-sports.
5) The Color accuracy
This refers to the total number of colors a display can accurately reproduce (or display). Monitors with a higher color accuracy will produce more vibrant images. It is generally measured in percentage, relative to the chosen color gamut, with NTSC, Adobe sRGB, DCI-P3 being the most common color gamuts. Anything ~50% NTSC should be good enough for gaming, but, the higher, the better.
6) The Display size
This is pretty self-explanatory, the size of the monitor is something of a personal choice, with more complex workflows requiring wider screens and bigger screens.
7) Other factors
This is a more multi-factor inclusive point. One should take into consideration the external look of the gaming monitor, whether it will look good with your setup (for that extra aesthetic point), whether the monitor has all the required ports, how good the build quality is, etc.
Check out some of our top picks for Budget 4k gaming monitors here.
