It's been 7 years since I shopped for a new monitor so I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to upgrading. After some research I understand that following criteria is important - it must be 144hz, IPS sounds like it's better than TN, Gsync is preferable (I have a 970), screen size either 24" or preferably 27" with 1080 native.

Am I pretty accurate here or are there nuances? I'm not looking to spend more than 500 (most likely during the next big sale a la Prime Day). If Gsync isnt that important I'd be more than happy to pay 300 for a monitor without that feature instead.

I'd say shoot for a 27" IPS monitor that is 2560X1440 - 1080p is nice but man is 2K resolution a noticeable step up. I haven't really seen if Gsync is that impressive or not to warrant picking it up (is it even used in most games?). Also an IPS monitor does add more to the price - I guess it depends on your viewing angle if you need an IPS vs. TN?

I'd check out either Wirecutter's guide here: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-27-inch-monitor/

Or check out Logical Increments Monitor guide: http://www.logicalincrements.com/monitors

Both should give you an idea of price and what to look for. Happy shopping!

All games should support Gsync. My understanding of Gsync is that the refresh rate of the monitor matches the frames-per-second the graphics card is outputting, making the image incredibly smooth.

@poveren Your criteria looks nice for your monitor if you don't plan on upgrading your card any time soon. If you do plan on upgrading your graphics card, I'd look into a 1440p monitor.

The main issue with the 144hz IPS panels are the panels them selves all come from the same manufacturer who has issues with Quality Control.

Its pretty much a panel lottery. You may get stuck pixels, back light bleed, ect...

Now as for TN vs IPS. If its strictly gaming a TN panel will be fine. Modern TN panels are now 8bit so they wont have the weird color issues older 6bit TN panels had. Yes IPS has better viewing angles but when you are gaming you are general sitting in the sweet spot.

Another site to add for your researching, http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

Go for a freesync/g-sync monitor first, worry about 144hz or not later. It's that big of a difference, especially if you're running on mid tier graphics cards, as they have a tendency to dip more in demanding games.

I'd agree that 1440p is a real noticable step up to 1080p, but may not be worth it if you're getting worse framerates.

IPS panels sure do rock, but modern TN-panels are really great nowadays aswell. And definetly don't burn as much of a hole in your wallet. Go try and have a comparison with your own eyes to see if the extra hundos are worth it for you.

Save yourself some cash and ignore G-Sync screens. At 1080p/144hz you will not notice any screen tearing.

@dgtlty:Tearing is visible no matter the refresh rate, bad advice.

An adaptive sync monitor (G-Sync in your case) is close to being necessary at this point. They command a premium but the removal of refresh rate being a factor in the use of a computer is pretty freeing. For gaming it makes anything between ~40fps and above perfectly comfortable to play and removes the need to sacrifice graphical detail in order to remove judder caused by occasional sub-60 framerates. If you're into emulation, it makes playing old arcade games that used weird non-standard refresh rates possible without everything being jerky as hell (the Mortal Kombat series is a good example of this). It also allows the watching of any kind of format of video content perfectly.

TN sucks, avoid anything using those panels entirely. IPS (or variant) 27" 1440p is currently the sweet spot for resolution/usability. It's not so high resolution that you have to increase the DPI for desktop use (something Windows 10 still struggles with) and as a result you have plenty of real-estate on the screen. Games not having to push as many pixels as 4K certainly helps too, and the panel has a high enough DPI to greatly reduce dependency on anti-aliasing.