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Best Gaming Lcd Monitors

LCD monitors have been around for many years, but they just didn’t meet the needs of gamers and IT professionals. The first problem was the poor back lighting combined with very weak pixel separation capability (for example if you moved the mouse around, you could see a cloud following it, but it was the same for any objects in a high-contrast image) made LCDs incomparable to the mature CRT technology.

The other huge problem was the response time. While CRT-s were able to respond (change the color of any pixel) in under 1ms, early LCDs struggled to respond in 40ms. This huge response time led to blurry images and a very poor gaming/movie (especially when it came to action movies) experience.

Today all of these problems are resolved. Top LCD monitors have RGB LED back lighting, which technology offers the best possible image quality. Response time has also been reduced to just 1-2ms that’s excellent for gaming and everything else previously done on CRTs. Alienware (Dell) released a 21.5” monitor that became the one of the best gaming LCD monitors at the time (in 2009).

The 21.5-inch OptX AW2210 LCD sold for only $290. This low price attracted most user categories, also because of its low response time on only 2ms, impressive high contrast images (still with classic fluorescent back lighting), dual HDMI input and integrated USB hub for easy USB access. Dell shipped these super monitors with professional stands that support height, tilt and swivel adjustment.

There are many cheap monitors that have decent contrast ratios and response times between 1ms and 3ms. Today one of the best gaming LCD monitors is made by Hanns-G, an ambitious German manufacturer that managed to put together a $299, 28” LCD with only 3ms response time, supporting resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 (aka FullHD):

Power consumption still needs to be improved in the future, because 85Watts don’t really sound green even when we’re talking about huge 28” monitors, because the industry already made 24” screens with only 17Watts maximum power consumption. We’re expecting something like 20-30Watts for a 28” screen with no extra features (TV-Tuner, USB HUB …etc). ASUS made a slightly better gaming LCD monitor:

For only $339 this 27” screen offers a 2ms response time and most features of the 28” HANNS-G monitor, but consuming only 70Watts max. To beat Alienware’s gaming LCD, ASUS also released a 21.5” FullHD screen with only 2ms response time, 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 31Watt power consumption, still based on the latest fluorescent back lighting technology:

Unfortunately they excluded the speakers, but the price is just right, $170 at newegg.com.

In conclusion LED backlit LCDs are ready to replace professional CRT monitors in all fields. For gaming you may buy any of the mentioned products, but any cheaper screen should do just fine with an appropriate contrast ratio around 40,000:1 and 5ms response time at most.