Gaming monitors offering a refresh rate of 144Hz are more popular than ever before. This is because higher refresh rates come with distinct advantages such as a smoother, more responsive gaming experience, and yes, even a slight competitive edge over your opponents who might still be using older 60Hz monitors. Besides the 144Hz refresh rate, gaming monitors offer a host of features to differentiate themselves from the pack. These features include things like curved screens, different picture modes to reduce eye strain, adaptive refresh rate, input-lag reducing panel types and more. In this roundup, we have limited our resolution to 1080 pixels so that your GPU doesn’t need to be extra beefy to be able to output the required frames per second.
The BenQ EX3200R is quite a large monitor featuring an LED-backlit VA panel. In order to provide a more immersive gaming experience, it also sports a curved design. While the refresh rate goes up to 144Hz, which is great for gaming, it also has Cinema Mode which enables the monitor to adapt the frame rate to support movie playback at 1080/24P, 25P, 30P etc. Being a VA panel it offers good viewing angles as well as black levels. The wide viewing angle offers good colour reproduction even when viewed from a 178-degree angle, while the native contrast ratio of 3000:1 ensures that dark scenes are represented with crisp clarity. Additionally, AMD’s FreeSync technology ensures that broken frames are a thing of the past. The monitor supports HDMI, DisplayPort, and Mini DisplayPort, which means you can connect a range of source media devices including your gaming PC of course.
The ViewSonic XG2402 is a thoroughbred 24-inch gaming monitor offering the very fast response time of 1ms – something which multiplayer competitive gamers will greatly appreciate when it comes to lowering input lag. With FreeSync technology, gamers can be assured of much smoother gaming experience by substantially reducing common issues such as screen tearing and stuttering. In terms of connectivity, the ViewSonic XG2402 comes with a variety of options such as 2 HDMI ports, a Display Port, 2 USB 3.0 Ports, and a 3.5mm stereo jack. This means you can connect a wide variety of devices and display sources. The monitor also has a number of presets as well as user-specified visual modes to suit multiple genres of gaming such as FPS, RTS, or MOBA.
The Asus ROG Strix XG32VQ monitor features 125% sRGB colour space which ensures that a wider range of colours is represented for more life-like visuals. To aid in gaming performance, the monitor not only includes FreeSync adaptive framerate technology for stutter-free gaming, but it also has unique features such as a customisable crosshair overlay and native FPS counter. The monitor will take care of gaming at 1080 pixels 144Hz with ease, but if you ever upgrade your GPU in the future, the resolution can be bumped up to 2560×1440 (WQHD). The Strix XG32VQ also concentrates on visual appeal by having a near bezel-less design as well as ambient RGB lighting on its back.
The PG258Q is one of the more purely gaming-focused monitors on this list. Almost all of its features are geared towards getting competitive gamers that last mile advantage – be it the incredibly high refresh rate of 240Hz or its 1ms response time. Two more bundled technologies take gaming performance further up. The first is NVIDIA’s G-SYNC which negates screen tearing and stutter. The other is Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) which sharpens objects in motion on the screen (the two can’t be activated at the same time though). Even its aesthetic is gaming themed. The three-pronged metal stand gives it a rather futuristic look and the bottom of the stand projects a logo on the table which can be customised to anything, even your clan logo.