Monitors scare and confuse me

I've been living a 1080p60Hz life since around 2010 and have decided that, after the purchase of my RTX 3070, it may be finally time to move on to bigger and better things in the monitor space.

I initially thought this would be a relatively simple process but given the wide range of available options I'm now starting to doubt myself. I want to take full advantage of my new GPU but I'm not sure which monitor best suits my needs. Please help me.

My requirements are as follows:

• Must cost less than £500
• Must be an improvement on a 1080p60hz monitor (can't imagine this will be very difficult)
• Max size shouldn't be much more than 27"

Additional information:

• I mostly play singleplayer games, the notable exception being Modern Warfare but I have no illusions of being an eSports level player
• I have a 55" 4k60Hz TV which I have hooked up to my PC for the occasions when I can be bothered to use it
• Assume I have no knowledge of HDR, panel types etc.

@ramone:

Your timing is pretty good actually. Hardware unboxed just released a best of 2020 video. There are quite a few things to choose from, but in that price range and with your video card (assuming the rest of your build keeps up), you’re looking for a high refresh rate 1440p monitor, and your budget probably rules you out of ultra wides. In any case, I’d suggest you check out the video, I find their stuff to be very comprehensive on monitors: https://youtu.be/0w1_zOiWQiE

Edit: just to be clear, high refresh rate being in the 144hz range. Also, I don’t think hdr is something you should be thinking about as part of the things you’re looking at feature-wise. To put it kindly, hdr on monitors is just not really a thing that works well and I would not pay extra for it.

Your price range will put you in the category for a nice 1440p 144hz monitor. Digital foundry also has video breaking down the monitor categories whether it be going for resolution or high refresh or both.

Like the guy above said HDR will be a nonstarter. For nice HDR you’ll be lucky to find anything below $1000 and even then Windows support is only beginning to raise the bar above shoddy.

Now I don’t know if these sales are available to you but if you’re not opposed to curved screens might I recommend a Samsung G7. It’s 1440p monitor that can do 240hz refresh and has freesync as well as being G sync compatible. Right you can find them going for $600 on sales but I have no idea if that’s available to you in the UK.

All in all I would check and see if the 1440p 144hz has some form of g sync compatibility which will be a nice future move to adjust to any varying framerates that new gen games will come with by pushing your hardware.

I have an Asus 27" 1440p 165Hz Gsync monitor and it's pretty amazing. A 3070 could push 4K, but I think for the price you're looking at and the size you want, the keywords you should be looking for are "1440p", "144Hz or 165Hz", and "Gsync". If you go for 4K, you'd be sacrificing one of the other two and I don't think sacrificing refresh rate or Gsync for resolution is worth it in a screen as small as 27".

*1440p is also sometimes referred to as 2560 x 1440, QHD, WQHD, or 2K; all of these are the same thing.

*If you get a high refresh rate monitor, you usually have to right click your desktop and go into display settings to change it to the higher refresh rate.

So, if PCPartPicker is accurate, you're basically looking for a monitor with 1440p resolution, 144 refresh rate, G-sync (or G-sync comparable), and an IPS display.

How much is something like the Asus TUF Gaming VG27AQ across the pond?

And I'm gonna mention that ReShade is a great post-processing alternative to HDR since HDR support on Windows is still iffy.

I have a 32 inch Acer Predator 4k GSYNC monitor and I still choose to use it over my 4k HDR tv for everything because it is such a good monitor. They make a 27 inch model that is 144 hz and is around $599.

Acer Predator XB1 XB271HU bmiprz 27" WQHD 2560 x 1440 2K Resolution 4ms 144Hz (165Hz OverClock) HDMI DisplayPort NVIDIA G-Sync Built-in Speakers USB HUB LED Backlit IPS Gaming Monitor

https://www.newegg.com/black-acer-predator-xb1-xb271hu-27/p/N82E16824106004?Description=acer%20predator&cm_re=acer_predator-_-24-106-004-_-Product

My ideal 4K HDTV is 40 inches with native 120 hz, since

I don't like gaming on anything larger.

Unfortunately, I have looked, but no such TV exists. Plenty of faux 120 hz 40 inch TVs that claim they

are, but after some research I learned they are most definitely not.

I got the LG 32gk650f recently and cannot fault it. It's 32" but honestly I think that's the sweet spot for a gaming monitor. Dirt cheap for the specs as well - only goes for around £300.

Lenovo Legion Y27q-20 here. It's my baby. What a beautiful, beautiful screen.

1440p, G-Sync/FreeSync compatible, IPS, 27", 165hz. If you can get it for under $500, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

I picked mine up for £250 ($334) as I got a student discount, but the Lenovo website seems to offer deals pretty regularly.

Just upgraded myself to a 27" 1440p 165hz Asus (curved). Curve looks nice, but I don't see any added benefit to it really. Running a 3070 as well. Honestly I wouldn't even bother with a 4K monitor at this point (give it a few years to come down more in price).

So far I'm loving this monitor, it has HDR which someone stated above isn't super great in monitors, but the few games that support it with the HDR turned on in Windows when it works, looks really nice.