Monitor - PC Gaming

Will either of you be upgrading the card in the near future? If so, then consider a better monitor so that you're not upgrading it again to take advantage of the newer card.

If you're thinking a year or two, then I'd go with at most a 27" 1080p monitor.

If you're thinking as soon as a good one is in stock, then consider a 4k 27 or 32 inch, but those are going to have a hefty investment.

Does he play FPS? Frame rate will play a bigger role in some games than others. Higher FPS is huge in games like CoD, less relevant in others and almost entirely irrelevant in games like Minecraft.

I agree, future proof it.

I have this Pixio 32" 165hz. No issues with it so far and looks fantastic. $309

We just ordered a new desk so we can move his monitor closer - I think he has a 22” now

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He does, mainly Fortnight and COD - I wasn’t looking to upgrade him right now so maybe we will look at 27” - Thanks

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27 is as high as he should go with these types of games

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Then 24-27”, 1080p, 144hz would be a good spot to shoot for. How much are you looking to spend?

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This 100%. Don't go bigger then 27" on 1080p

If you want to "future proof", you can go 1440p/144hz

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Probably $400 range if it is one that will last him if we eventually upgrade

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So, this is why I asked about the "competitive" part. Your hardcore competitive gamers stick with 1080p but try to get as high of a framerate as possible, literally. If that's what we're gunning for, something like this would be my suggestion if you want to build in a little future proofing:

LINK

Now, the reason I'm asking all of these questions is that I would personally never buy that monitor, but I'm not a competitive gamer. I game on this:

LINK

But if what you're saying about your son's usage case is accurate, my monitor would be a terrible choice for him, just like the monitor I'm suggesting for him would be a terrible choice for me.

There is also a fair amount of middle ground if he's more of a blend (for example, getting a high refresh 1440p monitor), but then you're getting into jack of all trades territory instead of picking something best for a single usage case.

The 27GL83A-B is on sale for $349 at Amazon right now. Buy it, thank me later.

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He ended getting the Alienware AW2720HF

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Tell him to make sure to look at reviews that talk about setup. Gaming monitors, like RAM, rarely work as advertised right out of the box. Best case scenario, you need to significantly lower the brightness. Worst case, you need to install boutique drivers. And a whole lot of ground in between, like fiddling with "overdrive" options (after fifteen seconds of research, it looks like this monitor plays nicest with the "super fast" option as "fast" is too slow and "extreme overdrive" causes too much overshoot. Did I mention that I hate "gaming" focused naming conventions? ).

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Thanks - we looked at the reviews before buying and this monitor had excellent reviews and will hopefully work as we upgrade - we would like to upgrade his graphics card in the near future

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To be clear, I have no doubt you looked at reviews. What I was saying is that not all reviews give detailed information regarding their opinion on how to set your options/settings. To give you an example, the monitor I bought comes out of the box with too slow of an overdrive setting, too high brightness, and too high... red? Maybe? One of the colors needed to be dropped a bit to get true white. I can’t remember which.

The punch line is that I’m no where near sophisticated enough to have figured that out on my own, so having a professional reviewer give set up advice is helpful.