Choosing The Right Gaming PC Monitor

There is an abundance of monitors out there for PC gaming. Choosing the right one however can be a task. Particularly if you have certain needs for your games, such as needing quick time and reactions or for deep 3D game play.

Gaming PC

So here’s what to look for

Response/Refresh

Getting a decent response time from your monitor is crucial, we mean down to milliseconds, a good monitor for a PC gamer should be under 8ms, and this is measured on a pixel changing from white to black to white again. Lag time should be under 16ms, the best way to find out how much input lag your gaming monitor might have is by doing a simple Google search.

27’ (68.6cm) screen is standard largest monitor screen for a gaming pc, but these come in varieties from 15’ and 30’, don’t always go for the biggest if your current gaming space isn’t ready for it, having a 30’ monitor just two foot across from you on the desk is not great for your health, or your wallet a gaming monitor can cost you anything from £100 to £1500. Having a splitter and two 24’ inch monitors is our personal preference for work and if you can create an eyefinity system of three monitors then 23.6’ HD TFT systems is the way to do it!

Brightness

Personally, we are not huge fans of glare, its ok in short terms for vivid colours, but for long gaming sessions it can be troublesome, its a preference thing. Monitor manufacturers love to harp on about how bright their screens are but most people won’t need more than 300CD/m which is candela per square meter – which is to do with luminance, anything higher can be a little painful on the retinas.

LED/LCD

There is lot’s written about which one to choose, here’s the breakdown: LED provide more balanced lighting and an even sharp picture than an LCD that is lit by CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps), LED is also more efficient – up to 40% more.

Resolution

If you can go for an aspect ratio of 1920 x 1080 at 1080p (that’s full HD) your winning. Get a 16:9 aspect ratio and you have the optimum viewing experience.

Monitor Panels

There are three types of panels used in desktop displays; these are twisted nematic (TN+), PVA/S-PVA, and IPS. Most monitors for PCs right now use TN+ which is the cheapest panel technology right now, it is also used in watches and calculators. It is essentially a twisted liquid crystal sandwiched between 2 plates of glass. PVA stands for patterned vertical alignment which is used for getting better solid blacks and reduction of gamma. IPS stands for In-plane switching which reduces the amount of light scattering in the matrix, it is primarily used for wide viewing angles and good colour reproduction, its also used for viewing from other angles than directly in-front of you, always ask before buying your monitor and find out what display is in your machine, you will be paying more for PVA and IPS systems.

Our Favourite gaming monitors

If you want the ultimate monitor (or two) for your gaming pc we recommend the ASUS VG278 which 27’’ and is full 1080p HD but also 3D and features 3D glasses which also follow your movements as you wear the glasses. It has a HDMI port and a dual link DVI-D which supports nVidia’s 3D vision and a true resolution of 1920 x 1080, It has a gray to gray pixel response time of just 2ms making this extremely fast particularly if you need fast rates from first person shooters such as Battlefield and Call Of Duty.

Another superb monitor is the Samsung S27A750D, another 3D super monitor with some similarities to the ASUS screen; aesthetics are the main difference, with slightly lower power consumption. If you do want a 3D monitor make sure you get the highest refresh rate you possibly can , because the standard refresh rate is cut in half, so from 120mhz this becomes 60mhz per eye!

Some monitors, like the awesome Viewsonic VX2753mh has a dual HDMI port, allowing you to connect a desktop pc and a console.

What does the future hold?

ASUS have gone full board with an incredible 3D monitor with glasses, soon 600 HZ screens and transparent paper thin screens could be making an appearance very soon. If your going to future-proof go for high quality LED 1920 x 1080 screens with a high refresh rate and low glare, it will keep you happy for the next onslaught of terrific games.