Although TVs are a more natural fit for gaming consoles, computer monitors are also recommended displays for console gaming. They have better input lag, which is beneficial in fast-paced competitive games, and are more suitable for those with limited room space. They are also great if you prefer an all-in-one display for both work and console gaming.
However, with so many options to choose from, shopping for the best console gaming monitors for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch can be a real nightmare. There are a lot of factors to consider, and it certainly doesn’t help that many monitors appear to be nearly identical based on their technical specifications. We’re here to make things easier for you. In this guide, you’ll find the top 10 console gaming monitors on the market, including budget-friendly 1080p monitors and 4K monitors.
BenQ Zowie RL2455S
The BenQ Zowie RL2455S is a great budget gaming monitor selling for around $150. It’s designed specifically for competitive gaming, featuring an exceptional response time and a low input lag. Since it has a TN panel, it’s got inferior picture quality, but that’s perfectly fine for competitive gaming, where picture quality is less important than response times and input lag.
Similar to most other budget TN monitors, this BenQ monitor has a plain and unattractive design, with thick bezels at all sides and a basic stand with limited adjustability. It has a pair of HDMI ports, which is great if you want to connect it to two gaming consoles. The menu controls are on the right edge of the monitor, with reference markers on the right bezel. The monitor has a built-in sound system, but the sound quality is mediocre, which isn’t really surprising for a budget monitor.
A suitable monitor for games such as Overwatch, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Street Fighter V, the RL2455S has a common 1080p resolution, which is more than good enough for the base PS4, the original Xbox One, and the Switch. While a 1080p resolution on a 24-inch screen looks good, with good pixel density, this monitor is not recommended for games with pretty graphics, with IPS monitors being much better options for those games.
Dell P2419H
If you care more about picture quality than response times and input lag, the Dell P2419H is a better budget option than the BenQ Zowie RL2455S. You can also get it for less than $200, with the price usually at around $150-170. It has a 1080p resolution and a 60 Hz refresh rate, both of which are perfectly fine for console gaming.
Compared to the budget BenQ monitor, this 24-inch Dell monitor has a better overall design, with thin bezels at three sides, a fully adjustable stand (which is notable for a budget monitor), and a better build quality. It has one HDMI port at the rear and includes a USB hub. If you want to mount this cheap gaming monitor to a monitor arm or wall mount, there is a 100×100 mm VESA mounting interface at the back.
The Dell P2419H is more suitable for single-player games than fast-paced competitive games. It’s great for games such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. It has good overall picture quality for a budget IPS monitor, with great color accuracy, wide viewing angles, and decent brightness. While not on par with TN gaming monitors, it has a good response time and input lag as well, which is great for gaming.
ViewSonic XG2402
One of the best TN monitors on the market, the ViewSonic XG2402 is an excellent gaming monitor, featuring an extremely fast response time and a low input lag. It’s most suitable for fast-paced competitive games. While it’s also a great option for PS4 and Switch consoles, it works best as a monitor for Xbox One, as the players will be able to take advantage of the monitor’s high refresh rate and FreeSync support over HDMI.
The 24-inch XG2402 has a slightly stylish design with red accents in some areas, including the chevrons at the back. While they are far from ultra-thin, the bezels at all sides look good, with the menu control buttons located under the bottom bezel. The monitor has built-in speakers, but they are mediocre and are not suitable for gaming, especially if you love to play games with an excellent soundtrack. For interfacing with gaming consoles, the monitor has two HDMI ports.
Although it’s not as good as IPS and VA monitors regarding overall picture quality, this ViewSonic monitor has better picture quality than most TN monitors, with great out-of-box color accuracy and good brightness. It has a 1080p resolution and a 144 Hz refresh rate, with the latter allowing you to run in 120 Hz mode on Xbox One S and Xbox One X. It’s a great product overall, offering excellent gaming performance and decent picture quality for a TN monitor.
LG 27UD58-B
If you want a 4K monitor for PS4 Pro or Xbox One X but don’t want to spend too much on one, check out the LG 27UD58-B. You can get it for around $300, with the price regularly dropping to around $250 during a sale. There is also a 24-inch variant that sells for even less, but we don’t really recommend that one, as 4K is best experienced on larger screens.
Like most other LG monitors, this 4K monitor has a plain design, with an all-black chassis with fairly thick bezels at all sides and a fixed-height stand. The input ports – which include a pair of HDMI 2.0 ports – are outward-facing at the back for easy access. The 100×100 mm VESA mounting interface is also easy to access if you want to mount the monitor to a third-party stand or wall mount. There is a small joystick under the bottom bezel, in the central area, for navigating the on-screen display (OSD), similar to most other LG monitors.
The 27-inch 27UD58-B is a great monitor for graphically intensive games, with its 4K resolution translating to sharper and more detailed images. It has a 60 Hz refresh rate, which is good enough for console gaming. It has a good response time for an IPS panel and a low input lag, with the former being especially beneficial in fast-paced or action-packed games. The monitor’s overall picture quality is good, with excellent color accuracy, decent brightness, and wide viewing angles. Sadly, its FreeSync feature is not supported over HDMI, which is bad news for Xbox One owners.
Asus VG279Q
The Asus VG279Q is a great option if you like the gaming performance of the ViewSonic XG2402 but prefer an IPS panel. It’s a 27-inch 1080p monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate and FreeSync support over HDMI, both of which are good news for Xbox One gaming. You can get it for around $300-350, which makes it more expensive than the ViewSonic product.
Featuring a sturdy stand with excellent ergonomics, this Asus monitor is a well-designed unit. It has thin bezels at the top and sides and includes a small joystick at the back for quick menu navigation. There is one HDMI port located at the rear for interfacing with gaming consoles, along with a DisplayPort and a DVI port for computers.
The VG279Q boasts a very fast response time, translating to minimal motion blur when playing fast-paced or action-packed games. The input lag is also very low, which is beneficial for competitive gaming. Regarding picture quality, this gaming monitor is good, with superb color accuracy, wide viewing angles, and decent contrast. On the other hand, the pixel density is lower than that of the ViewSonic monitor due to the larger screen, but it’s not a deal-breaker.
BenQ EL2870U
A 28-inch TN monitor, the BenQ EL2870U is a good 4K display for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X gaming, featuring a good response time, FreeSync over HDMI, and HDR support. You can get it for less than $350, which makes it one of the more affordable 4K monitors on the market.
Similar to the budget LG 4K monitor above, this BenQ monitor has a plain design that will not turn a lot of heads. The default stand has mediocre ergonomics, only offering a tilt option. If you want more screen position adjustment options, you’ll need to mount the monitor to a third-party stand with better ergonomics. For input, the monitor has two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DisplayPort, with the former being the more important interface for console gaming.
While the EL2870U has good gaming performance, with good response time and low input lag, it has inferior picture quality compared to the IPS 4K monitors on this list. It has good color accuracy and brightness, but it has narrow viewing angles and poor contrast. In addition, its HDR performance is not that great. Although it’s certainly lacking in the picture quality department, the EL2870U is a great product overall and is one of the best console gaming monitors.
LG 27UK650-W
The LG 27UK650-W is one of the best 4K monitors for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X gaming, offering excellent value for the money. It’s an IPS monitor with FreeSync over HDMI, HDR support, a low input lag, and dual HDMI ports. You can get it for around $400, with the price sometimes dropping to around $350 during a sale.
This 27-inch LG monitor has a simple design – a common trend among LG monitors – featuring a well-built chassis with thin bezels at three sides and a plain back panel with outward-facing ports. It has two HDMI ports, one DisplayPort, and one audio port. Both HDMI ports are HDMI 2.0, which allows for a 4K resolution at 60 Hz.
With excellent color accuracy, wide viewing angles, and decent contrast, the 27UK650-W has great overall picture quality. It’s great for games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Nier: Automata, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Forza Horizon 4. It has a fast response time for an IPS panel and a low input lag regardless of the resolution. The HDR performance is also decent, which is the best-case scenario for HDR monitors under $1,000. Overall, this LG product is an outstanding 4K monitor for console gaming, offering great picture quality and good gaming performance.
If you like the 27UK650-W but prefer a larger screen, check out the more expensive LG 32UD99-W, which usually sells for around $800. It’s a 32-inch 4K display that offers similar gaming performance and picture quality, although it’s a bit better in the HDR department.
You may also be interested in some of the best office monitors from our list. Check them out.
BenQ EW3270U
If you want a 4K monitor with a high contrast ratio, check out the BenQ EW3270U, a 32-inch VA monitor with HDR support and FreeSync over HDMI. It has a 60 Hz refresh rate, with a 40-60 Hz FreeSync range, which is a common adaptive sync range for 4K monitors. It’s a bit more expensive than the LG 27UK650-W.
On the outside, the EW3270U looks identical to the BenQ EL2870U, featuring a similar chassis design, with down-firing input ports at the back and an HDR button on the bottom bezel. The stand is also the same, which unfortunately means it’s got limited ergonomics. For connectivity with consoles, the monitor has two HDMI 2.0 ports.
The EW3270U has good overall picture quality, with its high contrast ratio translating to more vibrant images with deeper blacks, which is especially beneficial for games with lots of dark scenes such as Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, The Evil Within, and the Resident Evil 2 remake. While not as good as IPS and TN monitors, it has a good response time. The input lag is also low, which is always a good thing for gaming regardless of what games you play. If you are in the market for a 4K VA monitor for consoles, this BenQ monitor is one of the best options.
For more top-quality options like this, check out our guide on top G-Sync monitors.
Samsung C32HG70
The Samsung C32HG70 is an excellent VA monitor for gaming, featuring a 1440p resolution, a 144 Hz refresh rate, FreeSync support, and HDR support. It’s most suitable for gaming on Xbox One S and Xbox One X, which both support 1440p resolution. It sells for around $500-600, with the 27-inch model selling for around $100 less.
Of the monitors listed here, this Samsung product is the most different in terms of outside appearance, featuring a curved screen and a unique, arm-like stand with a different height adjustment motion. It has a small joystick on the back panel for menu navigation and includes dual HDMI 2.0 ports. The monitor has a cool lighting system as well, which manifests in the ring around the stand mount.
An ideal monitor for survival horror games, action RPGs, and open-world adventure games, the C32HG70 has good picture quality, with outstanding color accuracy and excellent contrast. The HDR performance is also decent, with good brightness in HDR mode and wide color gamut support. Moreover, the monitor has a fast response time, which is notable for a VA monitor, and boasts a very low input lag. On the flip side, the curved screen doesn’t offer the same immersion as curved ultrawide screens larger than 30 inches.
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Gigabyte Aorus AD27QD
The Gigabyte Aorus AD27QD is a 27-inch IPS monitor with excellent gaming performance and good overall picture quality. It’s basically the FreeSync equivalent of the Asus ROG Swift PG279QZ and the Acer Predator XB271HU, a pair of G-Sync monitors with similar specifications. While it will also work well for both PS4 and Switch, it’s best paired with the Xbox One S or the beefier Xbox One X, which can take advantage of the monitor’s FreeSync feature, high refresh rate, and 1440p resolution.
Like the Samsung C32HG70, this Gigabyte monitor stands out among the monitors in this guide due to its attractive design. It has a stylish chassis with thin bezels and includes a fancy stand with integrated cable management and a top handle. The stand is fully adjustable, with good adjustment ranges. For connecting with consoles, the monitor has dual HDMI 2.0 ports.
Featuring a very fast response time and a low input lag, the AD27QD is just as good as the Asus VG279Q regarding gaming performance. It’s great for action-packed games, with its excellent response time translating to minimal motion blur. The overall picture quality is also good, with outstanding color accuracy, wide viewing angles, and decent HDR performance. All in all, this Gigabyte product is a great gaming monitor, but it’s on the expensive side.
Buying Guidelines
There are a number of factors to consider when shopping for the best console gaming monitors, including the resolution, refresh rate, and connectivity options. Here are some guidelines when looking into the technical specifications of monitors:
Screen Size
Since one of the advantages of monitors is their smaller footprint, we recommend sticking to 24-inch and 27-inch monitors, with 32-inch monitors being the maximum if you want a large screen. If you have very limited space and usually sit less than three feet from the screen, 24-inch monitors are great options. They don’t take up a lot of space and are not overwhelming when viewed up close. They are more suitable for competitive gaming, with their size allowing you to easily see the entire screen, which can be an advantage.
Often considered the sweet spot for monitor size, 27-inch monitors strike an excellent balance between screen space and desk footprint. They look great whether you are sitting very close to the screen or from three or four feet out. Compared to smaller monitors, they offer a more immersive experience – especially if the resolution is 1440p or 4K – and are great for different kinds of games, including first-person shooters, racing games, and turn-based strategy games.
While they take up more desk space, 32-inch monitors are more immersive than 24-inch and 27-inch monitors, which makes them suitable for games with pretty graphics such as God of War, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and Final Fantasy XV. If you want a monitor larger than 32 inches but still under 40 inches, there are no other options. The other sizes – 34-inch, 35-inch, 38-inch – all belong to the ultrawide (21:9) category. All current gaming consoles don’t support a 21:9 aspect ratio. If you play a console game on an ultrawide monitor, the image will be either horribly stretched out or flanked with black bars.
There are also monitors that feature a curved screen, which makes for a more immersive gaming experience, especially when playing first-person shooters and racing games. However, they look better on ultrawide monitors than on regular 16:9 widescreen monitors.
Resolution
For the base PS4, the original Xbox One, the updated Xbox One S, and the Switch, a 1080p resolution is good enough. You can also use a 1080p monitor for the beefier PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, especially if you have a very tight budget and can’t spend more than $200 on a monitor, but that would be wasting the capabilities of those more powerful gaming consoles.
If you have a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One X, go for a 4K monitor. For the Xbox One S and the Xbox One X, you can also use a monitor with a 1440p resolution, which is now officially supported by both of those consoles. A 4K monitor is more futureproof, though, but it’s usually more expensive, especially those built specifically for gaming use.
You should also consider the monitor screen size when assessing the resolution. For monitors smaller than 25 inches, 1080p is the most recommended, as higher resolutions are more suitable for larger monitors. For 27-inch monitors, 1440p is considered the sweet spot, with 4K being a solid option as well. For 32-inch monitors, 4K resolution is recommended if you want images to be as sharp and detailed as possible, although 1440p is also a good resolution. Since both PS4 consoles and the Switch don’t support 1440p, we suggest sticking to 1080p and 4K when considering the resolution of the monitor for those gaming consoles.
Refresh Rate
The refresh rate is the number of times a monitor refreshes or updates the image on the screen per second, listed in Hertz (Hz). The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the gameplay. But for console gaming, a standard 60 Hz refresh rate is more than good enough, as console games are typically locked at 30 or 60 frames per second.
While both Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles support a 120 Hz refresh rate, there aren’t many Xbox One games that can actually take advantage of that. You can go for monitors with very high refresh rates for futureproofing, but keep in mind that they are more expensive, especially IPS monitors with 1440p or 4K resolution.
Response Time
The response time is the time it takes for pixels to change from one color to another, typically listed in milliseconds (ms). A faster response time translates to better motion handling, with less motion blur, which is especially great for fast-paced games such as first-person shooters. Unless you mainly play fast-paced competitive games and can actually tell the difference between a few milliseconds of difference in response times, you shouldn’t worry too much about a monitor’s response time – especially since the response time listed in the official specs is never accurate. If you want to check the actual response time of a specific monitor, you’ll need to look into hands-on reviews that include response time data.
Response time is different from input lag, which is also measured in milliseconds. Input lag is the time it takes for a monitor to react to your button inputs. Like response time, the lower the number, the better for competitive gaming. But unlike response time, input lag is not listed in the technical specifications. Just like with actual response times, you’ll need to rely on hands-on reviews for info on input lag, which can be a problem since not all reviewers test for input lag.
Panel Type
The three panel types used in monitors are In-Plane Switching (IPS), Twisted Nematic (TN), and Vertical Alignment (VA), with the latter being the least common. Here’s a quick breakdown of their strengths and weaknesses:
- IPS monitors have good color reproduction and boast the best viewing angles, which is beneficial during local multiplayer with your friends, with the monitor staying color-accurate even when viewed from the side. While they are not as fast as TN monitors, they have good response times. They are also widely available, with many screen size, resolution, and refresh rate options. On the other hand, IPS monitors are expensive, especially those intended for gaming
- TN monitors have the fastest response times, which makes them excellent for action-packed games and fast-paced competitive games. They are also the cheapest, with many high-quality TN gaming monitors selling for less than $300. However, TN monitors have poor color reproduction, subpar contrast, and mediocre viewing angles. In other words, their overall picture quality is unimpressive.
- VA monitors boast the best contrast ratio, making for more vibrant images, which is great for games with pretty graphics such as Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Far Cry 5, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. They have better overall picture quality than TN monitors, but they are not as good as IPS monitors regarding viewing angles. VA monitors are usually cheaper than IPS monitors, but as mentioned above, they are the least common. They are also the slowest regarding response times, which makes them unsuitable for those who are very sensitive to motion blur in games.
IPS and VA monitors are the most suitable for regular gaming, especially if you mostly play story-driven or slow-paced games and care about picture quality than response times. IPS monitors are recommended if you want faster response times and wider viewing angles, while VA monitors are better if you want a higher contrast ratio. TN monitors are only recommended if you mostly play fast-paced competitive games and care about response times than picture quality.
Video Input
Whether you game on PS4, Xbox One, or Switch, the only monitor input port you need to worry about for console gaming is HDMI. All monitors with at least one HDMI 1.4 port can interface with any of those gaming consoles. If you are shopping for a 4K monitor specifically for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, you should check whether the monitor has at least one HDMI 2.0 port. Unlike the older HDMI 1.4, HDMI 2.0 can fully support a 4K resolution at 60 Hz.
FreeSync/G-Sync
AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync are adaptive synchronization technologies that dynamically adapt the monitor refresh rate to the frame rate, allowing for variable refresh rates. It eliminates screen tearing as long as the frame rate is within the FreeSync/G-Sync range and is most beneficial when playing graphically intensive games.
For console gaming, G-Sync is useless, as no current console supports it, and that’s unlikely to change within the next few years. FreeSync, on the other hand, is only available on Xbox One consoles – including the original Xbox One model. However, if you want to use FreeSync, you’ll need to look for a monitor with FreeSync support over HDMI, as there are a lot of monitors that support FreeSync only when connected using a DisplayPort cable, which is for computers.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X consoles all support HDR content. With HDR, images are more realistic, with higher brightness, more colors, and better contrast ratio. However, monitors are not that great when it comes to HDR implementation, especially compared to HDR TVs. Most HDR monitors don’t have the right hardware to display HDR content properly. There are only a few monitors that offer good HDR performance, and they usually sell for at least a grand; the other ones are either decent at best or simply mediocre. If HDR performance is very important to you, consider getting an HDR TV instead.