What to Consider Before Buying a Gaming Monitor

If you are a gamer, you might be thinking about buying a gaming monitor or upgrading your monitor if you want to improve the visual experience when playing or even gain an advantage over your competitors.

With so many different options to choose from on the market, choosing the right gaming PC or monitor for you isn’t always an easy task. Keep reading to find out more about what to look for when choosing the right gaming monitor for your needs. 

Before You Buy

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Before you start looking at options like this 144hz gaming monitor, the two most important things to consider are your budget and your graphics card. Determine how much money you have to spend on a monitor first so that it is easier to narrow down your options to ones that suit you. However, many gamers overlook the importance of their graphics card when it comes to choosing a monitor.

If you’re running games on a budget graphics card and get a monitor with a high resolution and high refresh rate, you will notice issues with your in-game performance. The better the monitor you want, the better the graphics card you will need. On the other hand, if you have a high-end amazing graphics card and a budget monitor, you won’t be getting the full potential from your graphics card. 

Resolution

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Essentially, your monitor’s resolution is made up from a lot of small pixels, displaying different colours and shades. All of the pixels on a monitor combine to produce a large, single image. The more pixels that your monitor has, the better the image quality will be.

You can find out how many pixels a monitor has by looking at the resolution. A 1080p or 1920×1080 monitor is 1080 pixels tall and 1920 pixels wide. If you want even better image quality, go for 1440p or a 4K monitor. The type of games that you play will be a big consideration to make when choosing the pixels you need for your monitor.

If you play games that are designed to be more competitive rather than for their incredible visuals, then 1080p will work just fine. However, if you like to play games that are designed to provide amazing visuals, then a higher resolution monitor is often worth buying so that you can fully take advantage of the improved picture quality. 

Refresh Rate

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With competitive gaming only getting bigger, gamers are looking for as many advantages as they can get when playing. And one way to get a competitive edge is to use a monitor with a higher refresh rate. The faster your monitor is able to refresh the frame or switch to the next image when you are playing, the smoother your gameplay experience will be.

For example, if you go with a monitor with a 60Hz refresh rate, this will be able to ‘refresh’ the image shown on the screen up to sixty times per second. However, bear in mind that your graphics card also plays a big part in this and will impact the refresh rate of any monitor. 

Also Read: Why Should You Use VPN for Gaming?

Panel Type

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Finally, there are three different types of panels to choose from when picking a gaming monitor. These are:

• TN Panels: These are the cheapest panel technology you can get, and also offer the lowest response time. Because of this, they are the most common panel technology for gaming monitors, and you’re likely to find a lot of them. However, on the downside, they do not offer as good viewing angles or picture quality compared to others. 
• IPS Panels: These have better colour accuracy and viewing angles, which allows them to offer the best picture quality. However, they are more expensive in comparison to TN panels and come with a higher response time. With that said, you are unlikely to notice the slight difference in response time between TN panels and IPS panels. 
• VA Panels: If you want the best viewing angles and superior picture quality compared to other options, then it is worth investing in VA panels. However, bear in mind that they do have a higher response time and have had some issues with ghosting as a result of this. 

If you are a serious gamer but don’t have a huge budget for your monitor, then a TN panel with a fast response time and refresh rate is probably going to be ideal for you. If you have a bigger budget, an IPS panel can be a great choice. However, be wary of the issues that can come with a high response time. 

Whether you game for fun or competitively, the monitor you choose can make all the difference to your gameplay experience.