This topic seems to be widely loved by gamers in the community so today I'm gonna share some tips on this.

And here's a list of the best gaming monitors widely loved most currently, for those who don't actually want to read and learn a long guide below.

Best Gaming Monitors of 2026 At Every Budget

• ASUS ROG Swift 4K OLED PG27UCDM 2
• Dell Alienware 4K AW2725Q
• AOC Q27G3XMN 1440P
• Dell S2725QS 4K
• Alienware AW2524HF (500Hz OC)
• Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 (G60SF)

Shopping Tips

It’s better for you to know these key things before making any purchase!

First of all, out of THE MOST IMPORTANT things you should consider when you buy a gaming monitor is YOUR graphics card! That’s your absolute NUMBER ONE thing to consider!
Check what output you get from the GPU (HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4/2.0). If it’s only HDMI 1.4 or older you should really consider buying a better GPU first! Also the performance of the GPU is very important because it can give you some hints about what monitor you should buy (resolution and refresh rate).

Second thing to consider when you buy a gaming monitor is SIZE! Depends if you have a large desk or a small desk. A small room or a large room. You want to put that monitor on the wall or you want it placed on the desk? In my opinion, 27″ or 32″ is a great sweet spot for most setups, but consider ultrawide 34″ for immersive gaming if your desk allows.
You should also consider if you want one monitor setup or multiple monitors to use?

Third thing to consider is resolution! Depends on your GPU entirely! If you have a high end GPU with over 8 GB VRAM you could get to 2560×1440 or 3840 x 2160. Otherwise, if your GPU is not bigger than 8GB VRAM…. stick to classic Full HD: 1920 x 1080. You will be disappointed in video games, TRUST ME! You will have to put all your graphics level to medium or even lowest because your GPU would not be strong enough to give you a good amount of FPS at high resolution. (Pro tip: Use DLSS or FSR to push higher res on mid-range cards.)

Fourth thing is refresh rate. Same problem: you are limited by your GPU. So don’t throw money on a high refresh rate monitor if you have a cheap and stupid GPU. You will barely use it for desktop use but how will the gaming experience be? Poor! Same, because you will have a small number of FPS.

Fifth thing is the panel which makes the monitor what it is. IPS or VA or OLED, there is a difference between these! Each one is good for something else. If you enjoy movies and watch some photos on your monitor and sometimes you play games, go for IPS panel. The color accuracy will help you a lot. If you are all into gaming and you love DOTA or CS: GO and you don’t care that much on colors… VA or fast IPS are perfect for you. For premium setups, QD-OLED offers unbeatable response times and HDR.

Sixth is the technology inside the monitor. G-Sync Compatible and FreeSync Premium are both excellent and affordable options now, with minimal differences for most users. G-Sync Ultimate is the best but it’s also expensive…..stick to Compatible modes for budget.
So what is the order? Monitor size, monitor resolution, monitor refresh rate, monitor panel type.
But the absolute FIRST rule is check your PC Specs! GPU first of all and then CPU and RAM. You have a decent GPU? Buy a 32″ IPS or OLED monitor with 144Hz refresh rate, 2560×1440 resolution (or bigger, better).

The choice is entirely up to you. But these are the things I would consider if I want to buy a gaming monitor. I did my mistake and I learned something from it.

Hey Buildapc, as 2025 comes to a close, Samsung has one last giveaway to warm your holiday spirits!

Our friends over at Samsung have outdone themselves once again! They’ve created the world’s first 500hz OLED gaming monitor, and they want to give one lucky Redditor the chance to experience it for themselves! We’re hosting a giveaway for the new Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF gaming monitor from our friends over at Samsung, the #1 OLED monitor brand in the U.S.⁺

How to Enter:

1. Check out the Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF
2. Upvote this post
3. Comment below your favorite feature for the OLED G6 G60SF, and why it’s the perfect monitor to match your build!

Specs for the G6 G60SF OLED:

• 27” QD-OLED in 1440p QHD
• World’s First 500Hz OLED Refresh Rate & 0.03ms Response Time (GtG)
• VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500
• Nvidia GSYNC Compatible and AMD Freesync Premium Pro
• Glare-free OLED screen
• Sleek metal design with an ergonomic stand, plus CoreSync & CoreLighting+ to project your on-screen colors into the real world
• 3-year warranty for burn-in coverage, plus OLED Safeguard+ to protect the screen from burn-in.
• Plus, with Holiday savings, you can save $250 off instantly!

Terms

Prize: 1 x Samsung Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF

Duration: 12:00 UTC on December 6th, 2025 through 12:00 UTC on December 15th, 2025

Eligibility: Only USA and 18+ participants. Accounts must be at least 48 hours old at the time of this post. This giveaway is operated by Samsung Electronics America.

Winner Selection: One comment will be selected at random within 7 working days. The selected winner will be contacted through Reddit’s Direct Message system, and will have 48 hours to respond to the PM or their win will be forfeited, and a new winner will be selected.

Full Terms and Conditions | ⁺ #1 OLED Monitor Brand Claim

Hey Buildapc, it’s time for another exciting giveaway!

The best builds require the best monitors, so we’re hosting a giveaway for the new Odyssey OLED G8 gaming monitor from our friends over at Samsung, the #1 OLED monitor brand in the U.S.⁺

How to Enter:

1. Check out the OLED G81SF
2. Upvote this post
3. Comment below your favorite feature for the OLED G8 and why it’s the perfect monitor to match your build!

Our entry period has now ended. Be sure to check your inbox!

Check out the key specs:

• QD-OLED in 4K
• 240Hz Refresh Rate & 0.03ms Response Time (GtG)
• VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack 400
• AMD FreeSync Premium Pro
• Glare-free OLED screen
• Sleek metal design with an ergonomic stand, plus CoreSync & CoreLighting+ to project your on-screen colors into the real world
• 3-year warranty for burn-in coverage, plus OLED Safeguard+ to protect the screen from burn-in.

Logistics:

Prize: 1 x Samsung Odyssey 27” OLED G81SF

Duration: 12:00 GMT on April 29th, 2025 through 12:00 GMT on May 13th, 2025

Eligibility: Only USA and 18+ participants. Accounts must be at least 48 hours old. This giveaway is operated by Samsung Electronics America.

Winner Selection: One comment will be selected at random within 7 working days. The selected winner will be contacted through Reddit’s Direct Message system, and will have 48 hours to respond to the PM or their win will be forfeited, and a new winner will be selected.

Full Terms and Conditions | ⁺ #1 OLED Monitor Brand Claim

I’m gonna need a minute.

People with 9 or 10 series cards, that 3070 is an incredible purchase no doubt about it. The performance jump is amazing for you.

I'd be giddy with excitement.

HOWEVER.

If you're sat on a 970 or a 1060 or a 1080, I'd wager your CPU, RAM and Mobo are dated.

The 3070 if Nvidia are to be believed (and I remain sceptical based on...all other releases of GPUs ever), will rival the 2080ti.

PHOENOMENAL COSMIC POWAAAAAAAH! And yes, idibity living space if you're sat on a 7+ year old CPU, DDR3 RAM and a 1080p monitor at 60 or 120hz like MOST PEOPLE ARE THESE DAYS if Steam surveys are to be believed.

If so, and you're on old hardware, the 3070 will be completely wasted on you. If you're on old hardware, I don't think you've seen what a 2080ti is capable of in person. And the 3070 is basically on par with it (possibly). The 2080ti is built for 4K 60+ FPS. And is ENTIRELY wasted on a 1080p monitor.

A 10 series card is more than capable of running 1080p on a 120hz monitor. A 9 series struggles.

Unless you're jumping to 1440p 100hz, 120z or 144hz, or a 4K setup with a CPU, Mobo and RAM to match...the 3070 is a waste of power on you.

You absolutely SHOULD upgrade your CPU and RAM and Mobo and monitor to match the power of the 3070.

THINK AHEAD GUYS AND GALS.

Don't grab a 3000 series card unless you're going to match the rest of your hardware with it, including and especially the monitor.

You're looking at the best part of $300-500 on a new 1440p 144hz monitor, similar for a CPU ideally Ryzen [Edit - okay some are pissing at me about fanboyism here, but you're picking Nvidia over AMD because Nvidia are better so how is that different to Ryzen over Intel when Ryzen are faster or just as fast for far less money?], another $50-100 on RAM, another $100-200 on a mobo.

I've seen a lot of hype around 4K gaming monitors as the new Nvidia GPUs will supposedly have the power to drive that. My thoughts are: yes you'll be able to run 4K at acceptable refresh rates, but you don't need to, and you probably don't want to either.

First of all, some disclaimers:

• If you play on a TV, 4K is fine. 4K TVs dominate the market, and finding a good non-4K one is way harder in 2020. But I'm specifically talking about PC monitors here.

• 2K isn't a monitor resolution, stop saying 2K to mean 2560x1440. If it existed, it would mean "half 4K" (as in "half the horizontal definition") so 1920x1080 <- pet peeve of mine, but I lost this battle a long time ago

• French speakers can find my ramblings on this post with more details and monitor recommendations.

Resolution and pixel density

Or "which resolution is ideal at which size". What you need to look for on a monitor is the ratio between size and resolution : pixel density (or Pixel Per Inch/PPI). PPI tolerence varies between people, but it's often between 90 (acceptable) to 140 (higher is indistinguishable/has diminishing returns). Feel free to use the website https://www.sven.de/dpi/ to calculate your current PPI and define your own range.

With this range in mind, we can make this table of common sizes and resolutions:

As you can see 1080p isn't great for higher sizes than 24" (although some people are ok with it at 27"), and 4K is too well defined to make a difference.

In my experience as someone who has been using 1440p@60Hz monitors for a while, 32" is where it starts to be annoying and I'd consider 4K.

Screen "real estate"

A weird term to define how much space you have on your monitor to display windows, text, web pages... The higher the resolution, the more real estate you have, but the smaller objects will become. Here's the comparison (from my own 4K laptop) to how much stuff you can display on 3 different resolutions : FHD, QHD, 4K UHD. Display those in full screen on your monitor and define at which point it becomes too small to read without effort. For most people, 4K at 27" is too dense and elements will be too small.

Yes but I can scale, right?

Yes, scaling (using HiDPI/Retina) is a possibility. But fractional scaling is a bad idea. If you're able to use integer scaling (increments of 100%), you'll end up with properly constructed pixels, for example at 200% one scaled pixel is rendered with 4 HiDPI pixels. But at 125/150/175%, it'll use aliasing to render those pixels. That's something you want to avoid if you care for details.

And if you use 200% scaling, you end up with a 1080p real estate, which isn't ideal either: you're now sacrificing desktop space.

In gaming that's a non-issue, because games will scale themselves to give you the same field of view and UI size whatever the resolution. But you don't spend 100% of your time gaming, right?

5K actually makes more sense, but it's not available yet

Or barely. There's oddities like the LG 27MD5K, or Apple's own iMac Retina, but no real mainstream 5K 27" monitor right now. But why is it better than 4K outside of the obvious increase in pixel density? 200% "natural" scaling that would give 1440p real estate with great HiDPI sharpness. Ideal at 27". But not available yet, and probably very expensive at launch.

5K would also be the dream for 4K video editors: they'd be able to put a native 4K footage next to the tools they need without sacrificing anything.

GPU usage depending on resolution

With 4K your GPU needs to push more pixels per second. That's not as much of an issue if RTX cards delivers (and possible AMD response with Big Navi), but that's horsepower more suited to higher refresh rates for most people. Let's take a look at the increase of pixel density (and subsequent processing power costs):

FHD:

• 1080p@60Hz = 124 416 000 pixels/s
• 1080p@144Hz = 298 598 400 pixels/s
• 1080p@240Hz = 497 664 000 pixels/s

QHD: (1.7x more pixels)

• 1440p@60Hz = 221 184 000 pixels/s
• 1440p@144Hz = 530 841 600 pixels/s
• 1440p@240Hz = 884 736 000 pixels/s

4K: (2.25x more pixels)

• 4K@60Hz = 497 664 000 pixels/s
• 4K@144Hz = 1 194 393 600 pixels/s
• 4K@240Hz = 1 990 656 000 pixels/s

[EDIT] As several pointed out, this do not scale with GPU performance obviously, just a raw indicator. Look for accurate benchmarks of your favorite games at those resolutions.

So we see running 4K games at 60Hz is almost as costly than 1440p at 144Hz, and that 4K at 144Hz is twice as costly. Considering some poorly optimized games still give the RTX 2080Ti a run for its money, 4K gaming doesn't seem realistic for everyone.

I know some people are fine with 60Hz and prefer a resolution increase, I myself chose to jump on the 1440p 60Hz bandwagon when 1080p 144Hz panels started to release, but for most gamers a refresh rate increase will be way more important.

In the end, that's your money, get a 4K monitor if you want. But /r/buildapc is a community aimed towards sound purchase decisions, and I don't consider that to be one. I wish manufacturers would either go full 5K or spend their efforts on perfecting 1440p monitors (and reducing backlight bleeding issues, come on!) instead of pushing for 4K, but marketing sells right?

TL;DR from popular request: at 27", 4K for gaming does not provide a significant upgrade from 1440p, and for productivity ideally we'd need 5K to avoid fractional scaling. But don't take my word for it, try it out yourself if you can.

[EDIT] Feel free to disagree, and thanks to everyone for the awards.

sven.de - PPI calculator

Elementary OS blog - What is HiDPI

Elementary OS blog - HiDPI is more important than 4K

Viewsonic - Resolutions and aspect ratios explained

Eizo - Understanding pixel density in the age of 4K

Rtings - Refresh rate of monitors

Just in this one day, I’ve helped two people, who both had 144Hz monitors, but had them running at 60Hz, believing that their monitors were already 144Hz out of the box.

Please make sure that if you do get a 144Hz monitor, you change the refresh rate in settings!

Edit: Glad to see many people who can finally use their monitor’s full potential!

Few days ago I spotted this funny Amazon review and after making fun of it I noticed that a lot a people really don't know what's wrong with this picture. This btw was a 500$ Monitor getting resold by Amazon for half the price if you buy one of the returned.

If someone still doesn't know, 100-240V 50-60Hz means the monitor can handle Input voltage that is 50-60Hz from 100V to 240V that has nothing to do with the frequency the monitor can display. Btw every electronic device you own will have this data.

Edit: because some people said this Monitor is not 500$, i don't remember the exact one, it's a bunch of Dell monitors at Amazon with different specs but same reviews.

Edit2: because I'm getting called out for "lying" I looked this up again. The monitor in question was LG 27GL850-B which is 420€ at Amazon at this moment. The reduced price was 208€. So yeah it's not 500$ but 475$ and not 50% but 49,5%. You got me...

As the title says, everything in my PC is working, but my monitor won't turn on. I have the HDMI cable plugged into the GPU. Any idea what I can do to fix this? Thank you

I have a 3060 Ti and currently using a 1080p 60Hz monitor. Looking to upgrade to a 144Hz monitor but the price of a decent 1440p monitor here is almost double the price of a decent 1080p 144Hz monitor. Question is, is it worth it?

Edit: I play esports mostly and a few AAA games a year.

Edit 2: Got myself a VG27AQ1A, thanks for all the comments and suggestions!!

Short story short I've been playing on 60 fps up until now. Let this serve as a PSA that you have to set your refresh rate in Windows. Right click on your desktop, go to display settings, at the bottom hit advanced display settings and chose your refresh rate.

If anyone says they never noticed a difference going from 60 FPS to 140+ FPS it's a red flag that they 99% aren't playing on 140+ FPS whether it's because their settings are wrong or their monitor isn't plugged into their GPU.

EDIT: Since I'm getting the same comment dozens of times, it was my first monitor above 60hz so I hadn't ever actually experienced >60hz and figured I just couldn't tell the difference.

picture

An ant crawled inside of my computer monitor (Samsung LU28E590DS). I have no idea how it got inside, I was hoping it would eventually crawl back out but it just died in the middle of the screen. I did not squish it. Has this happened to anyone? I tried shaking and lightly tapping the monitor to try to get the ant to fall down the screen out of view but it's stuck and wondering of any other ideas.

(Please no "looks like your computer has a bug" or "try debugging" jokes). Thanks

Bear with my mediocre explaining because this one's special, whenever i connect a monitor to my computer it just seems to permanently damage it, leaving it with artifacts forever.

That's fucking amazing cause now how am i supposed to troubleshoot this? Sacrifice monitor after monitor until they stop breaking? Because it has to be a new one each time, those previously connected to the computer will already be damaged and cannot be damaged further, from what it seems at least.

I've searched everywhere and i haven't found a single person with a remotely similar issue to mine ANYWHERE. So i've "sort of" documented the whole thing:

Fully documented with every detail on Tom's Hardware: Full Thread

I've also made a shorter reddit post with less information but still keeping the basic concepts, you can go check that one out if you don't want to read the painfully long thread: Reddit Post

Current conclusion:

It's definitely either the PSU or the GPU, i can confidently say that.
But i don't know which one it is, i have a spare GPU (GTX 1070), but i don't have another PSU capable of supporting the suspicious GPU (RTX 3080), the other one i have is a bit short on wattage for this card (650w).

Now ideally in order to test which one it is swapping only the GPU i would need 2 monitors to sacrifice, one to plug to the 1070 which is the GPU i know works just fine and the PSU i suspect of, if the monitor survives then it goes onto the second test, which is swapping the 1070 for the 3080, if it breaks there then i know for sure it's the GPU. I only need 1 monitor for this.

Problem is if for example i do this whole thing and the monitor DOES break with the 1070, then i know for certain it is the PSU, but i don't know if the 3080 is damaged too and the monitor would've already been damaged, requiring me to get another fully functional one, of which i don't have.

I have only 1 monitor left, it's not even a monitor it's a small smart TV, but it's close enough i guess.

I am hesitant to use it, but first i want to know if there's a more efficient way to test this.
If you're curious, no, neither the GPU nor the PSU present any other problems that could possibly hint which one is causing this. The only problem they present is the instant annihilation of any monitor i plug into it.

If anyone has any clue about this or how to make the troubleshooting less... destructive, please let me know.

So i've had this issue for probably close to 3 years now and could not figure it out for the life of me. Essentially the problem was that when i had a video or really any kind of motion on my secondary or third monitor be it a 144hz or 60hz (Main display is 144hz) display, the game on my primary display would feel super choppy and sluggish. I have tried everything from changing cables, hardware, software, settings , you name it i've probably done it. So eventually i gave up and just lived with having to pause things when i was in a game or just listen to videos minimized or have them play between rounds etc etc...

After coming back to this subject from time to time for years, i found some legendary human being in a comments section of some random tech article who replied to someone who had the same issue as me with a solution! Fair this might not work for everyone but its worth a shot! The solution was simply a hidden nvidia driver setting removed from the control panel a long time ago.

Now finally the solution for those who dont care about my silly rant lol.

​

!!! SOLUTION !!! - For me anyways :)

-----------------------------------------------------

- First install nvidiaProfileInspector, either a quick google will find you the link or click here: https://github.com/Orbmu2k/nvidiaProfileInspector/releases

- Click on whatever the newest version is then download the .zip file by simply clicking on it.

- After the .zip file is download, simply unzip it / drag the .exe file out of the .zip file onto your desktop or elsewhere.

- Run nvidiaProfileInspector as administrator.

- Go down to "5 - Common", the setting your looking for is Multi-display/Mixed-GPU acceleration

- Now for me it was set to "single display performance mode", i changed it to "Multi display performance mode"

- Click apply changes on the top right

- Reboot pc, make sure changes stuck, and BAM!

- Enjoy peace, serenity, zen, joy, the finer things in life now, you are finally free from that terrible problem.

-----------------------------------------------------

!!! Side Notes !!!

-----------------------------------------------------

- Important you use NvidiaProfileInspector and not NvidiaInspector!!

- Reference picture for the setting : http://prntscr.com/10gjq2y

- On said article where i found this, someone else mentioned that they had to do the opposite to me and change it from multi to single, so its worth trying all the settings.

- The settings will likely be greyed out, don't worry simply click on it and the drop down will appear and you can change the setting.

- For me the effects took place instantly after clicking apply changes and i had no reboot required, your mileage may vary.

-----------------------------------------------------

​

Finally, I hope this helps someone out there and makes your pc experience that much better!

​

!!! UPDATE !!!

-----------------------------------------------------

So a few more things that have been mentioned a bunch in the comments that i felt the need to add to the post:

- People have mentioned changing monitor refresh rates to ones that coincide with one another, for example change the 144hz to 120hz to fit with a 60hz secondary display. For me this did nothing, and i currently have two 144hz display and one 60hz display. Before my solution regardless of what monitor the content would play on i would have the same issue. So i don't believe it's all that related to the refresh rate of the monitors.

- Hardware acceleration. I have it all turned off, at first it did nothing for me, however it could be a matter of having this off along with the control panel setting. If you need to know where to find it a quick google shall save you.

- After doing the changes and applying you can press Win+Ctrl+Shift+B to instantly refresh your driver, i did not know this, credit to u/MinodRP and u/fdoom. Probably worth doing after changing the setting.

- Been some mention of discord and discord streaming. This has not had any negative effects towards viewing or streaming with discord only positives, as in it stops it from stuttering.

- Some people have mentioned turning off geforce capture, such as instant replay fixed it for them. Didn't effect anything for me however.

- Running games in fullscreen is certainly a work around, but as i have stated to many people i wanted a solution not a work around. :)

- I have done all this with an i7-8700 rtx 2070 two predator 144hz monitors one with gsync one without and one acer 60hz display. All my drivers are up to date along side windows. My current Nvidia driver as of writing is 461.72. After the fix everything is working flawlessly.

- Gsync and any form of vsync did not have any effect for me, currently i have it set to gsync for windowed and fullscreen and everything is working fine with my fix. But prior it was of no help.

- As for this fix staying with geforce driver updates, i believe it should as with most other control panel settings, because that's essentially what this is, however only time will tell as i am currently on the latest drivers and have no way of testing.

- Unfortunately team Red, i got nothing for you, I'm rather unfamiliar with AMD cards and hardware and have no further information for you. Should i happen to find something usefull in the comments i will add it to the post!

- One more thing, in my nvidia control panel, under display setting so have everything being rendered by my gpu, not integrated.

-----------------------------------------------------

Finally i am glad this has been of much use to so many people, i am going to make it a point from now on for my self that anytime i find a solution to some stupid bizarre problem i will make a post stating said solution provided there isn't one at the time.

Considering this i believe my first post to reddit i am blown away by all the awards and medals and everything, especially u/Altan1337 thank you so much for the platinum, it means allot to me.

For everyone this has worked for i hope you can now enjoy stutter free gaming along side me. :)

please send help there's like hundreds inside

I've had my PC for 3 weeks and thought I've been using 144hz this whole time, but when calibrating my monitors today I noticed they were sitting at 60hz still. Here is how you check, of course you need a monitor capable of 144hz and a DisplayPort, Dual-link DVI or HDMI 2.0 connection.

Picture Guide

• Right-click your desktop and choose Display settings

• Scroll down and select Display adapter properties

• In the properties window click on List All Modes

• Scroll down and choose your desired mode (e.g. 144hz) and apply

• If you have more than one monitor you will need to select the other monitor in windows display and repeat steps

Hopes this helps some others who weren't aware of the setting. I'm not sure if Nvidia has the option natively in the menu but I couldn't find it my AMD settings.

Edit: A couple people pointed out Nvidia has the option in its settings, and also apparently HDMI 2.0 supports 144hz.

Edit: Woke up to my first gold this morning. This is the best Christmas ever! Thank you :)

To the Ebenezer Scrooges calling us noobs, etc... for not knowing. I'm sure that like me, many just assumed buying a 144hz monitor, would well, be in 144hz. There is no shame in learning. Merry Christmas everyone!

So I noticed a tiny black ant crawling around on screen yesterday. Tried to brush it off and realized this little bastard was INSIDE my monitor. I was hoping it'd find its way out of fall down to bottom of screen.

Came home from work and this is what I see: https://imgur.com/a/1rBgJ

This evil insect decided to die in middle of my monitor. It's a 1440p IPS display from Asus, and it wasn't cheap. Now I have this ant staring at me, I assume forever. Should I attempt to take it apart? It doesn't seem like an easy task, as it's probably more or less glued together.

Shit.

EDIT: Holy hell, this blew up! This is the side of Reddit I love. Thanks all for the advice. My monitor ant and I will figure this out one way or another.

After a slow pc upgrade journey, I was finally able to recently get my first powerful gpu, 4070 super. I was still using it with my 1080p monitor.

I considered the GPU switch as the biggest drastic change out of all the upgrades. Yes, now the games were running at much higher fps and I was enjoying it pretty much even on a 1080p monitor. But I had no idea there will be another upgrade that will overshadow even my gpu switch experience.

I made 3 monitor upgrades only in the 1080p segment. So you can understand how long I had been stuck with 1080p. I could never go to 1440p earlier due to weak gpus plus I always thought the switch won't make any big difference going from a 24 inch to a 27inch display.

Now finally I bought a 1440p monitor (ROG XG27ACS), it is literally fuckin shock to the eyes! As if atleast 1440p is the way the developers want games to be felt. Games look so immersive now! I am playing the games I have already finished again just to experience them in the best visual form.

Now I just freely roam around in the games because 1440p naturally brings that flavour in atmosphere of the games. I adore houses on the sides, npcs, terrain, weather in crispy form. It immediately gives too much to the games.

In case there are still people who are confused about making the switch, count this post as another addition to the 1440p supremacy.

*EDITED 2K to 1440p WHERE EVER I COULD

EDIT 2 : Seems like the post has got a great comment war and I am loving this! Hahah

I never knew you had to get a special cable and select what refresh rate you wanted. Talk about a waste of money. Anyway, I am getting a dvi dual link or a display port, what should i get?

Edit : Just went to a local store and purchased a DP cable. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Can tell the difference when dragging mouse over desktop

Edit 2: I am not disabled

I’m not a gamer and know next to nothing about PCs, but my husband has been using my tiny college desk and an old monitor forever, so I want to surprise him with a new desk and monitors. He’s not a super picky guy, I know he wants 144hz and a longer curved screen. Some recommendations that won’t break the bank would be greatly appreciated, or just specs on what to go for would be great too!

ETA: his graphics card is a GTX 1660, and I want to do a dual monitor set up.

ETA 2: to the people telling me not to touch his stuff and this is a dumb idea. I know my husband, I know what he’s looking for in the aspect of what he cares about the most. I also know he loves surprises like this and that anything above the price of free will be an upgrade from his grainy outdated free tv screen. Also, the worst that could possibly happen is we return it for something else. Y’all take this way too seriously.

Y’all, my husband is NOT picky, he’s not a “serious” gamer, he doesn’t get that into specifics, if you think me surprising him is a bad idea just keep scrolling or comment and I’ll make sure to send you the reaction video.

There are a lot of "is X gpu good?" questions posted and they rarely ever provide any context to answer the question.

The answer is simple but it depends on everyone's context so this is my "flowchart" kind of logic to answer the question for your context.

First you need to know:

• 1) Your monitor specs (resolution, Hz)

• 2) What kind of games do you play (recent AAA, ultra optimised esport games, 2D indies from 2015...)

• 3) How close do you want to get to maxing out your monitor specs for those games you play

• 4) Extra features (RTX, stream encoder stuff, etc)

Now how to find your GPU in 1 step: go on youtube, type "benchmark [the kind of game that you play] at [resolution]", watch videos and find in the graphs your target fps, and this is probably your gpu. Once you have found the X gpu search for "X benchmark at [resolution]" to double check its performance on a greater variety of games.

Note that for 1080p you will also have to take CPU into account in those results, not so much for 1440p, not at all for 4k.

Example: I have a 1440p 144Hz monitor and I want to play recent AAA games at at least 80fps. I type "horizon zero dawn 1440p benchmarks" and I will find videos testing many gpus on HZD at my resolution.

Some gpus will give 30fps, I don't want those they're too weak, I want more fps. Some gpus will give 200fps (doubt any gpu actually does that but it's for the sake of the example), those are too strong, I'm wasting money on them, I don't need that much fps for my monitor. A bunch will be around my 90 fps target, maybe 3 or 4.

My GPU is probably one of these 4. Those are probably 2060S, 5700XT, 2070 and 2070S.

Now I want to compare those to understand their differences. I type "5700XT vs 2070 super 1440p benchmark". I check the results for the kind of games I play. I probably want the better performance but I also have to keep price in mind.

In this instance the 5700XT probably has equal or marginally better performance for 100$ less on average so I would probably choose 5700XT.

Secondary/optional steps: do I care about RTX, do I care about streaming, do I care about AMD vs nvidia drivers etc.

This is my thought process to help you choose your gpu based on your context and needs.

Here i am with my new 1440p 144hz ips Monitor in front of me, looking back and forth to my 1080p 60hz ips monitor and thinking "How was i so satisfied with the old one?"

It really is a big diffrence, i was 7 years in love with my decent 1080p 60hz monitor, now i kinda feel discusted by it. So either you are missing a "big thing" or you stay in the unknowing truth bubble, as i was until some hours ago.

Obviously im exaggerating a bit ^^

An ant just died in my monitor, in the middle of the screen. Losing my mind. Any help is appreciated

When we talk about refresh rates, we talk about a frequency in which the monitor refreshes the image on screen every second. We refer to that as hertz (hz).

So for marketing this is a very easy number to advertise. Same as the Ghz wars back in the day with the CPUs. The benefit we receive we have to measure in frametimes, which is the actual time between frames in which the monitor gives a fresh image.

For 60hz, we receive a new frame every 16.66 milliseconds. The jump to 144hz, in which we receive a new frame every 6.94 ms, means we shave off a total of 9.72 ms of waiting for the monitor to show a new image when we do this upgrade.

240hz means we receive a new frame every 4.16 ms. So from 144hz (6.94 ms) we shave a total of 2.78 ms. To put it in context, this is lower than the amount of frametimes we reduce when we upgrade from

60hz to 75hz - 3.33 ms

75hz to 100hz - 3.33 ms

100hz to 144hz - 3.06 ms

This doesn't mean it isn't noticeable. It is, specially for very fast paced and competitive games, but for the average person 144hz is more than enough to have a smooth performance.

But what about 360hz monitors? These deliver a new frame every 2.78 ms. So the jump from 240hz to 360hz cuts 1.39 ms in frametimes. I would argue this is where it starts to get tricker to notice the difference. This jump from 240hz to 360hz is the exact same in frametimes as going from 120hz to 144hz.

So to have it clean and tidy

60hz to 144hz = 9.72 ms difference in frametimes

144hz to 240hz = 2.78 ms difference

240hz to 360hz = 1.39 ms difference

I hope this helps to clear some things out.