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#1 ASUS ROG Strix XG27AQ
The best 1440p 144Hz monitor we’ve tested is the ASUS ROG Strix XG27AQ. It’s an excellent gaming monitor with a 27 inch 1440p IPS screen and a fast refresh rate that you can overclock to 170Hz. It has an extremely quick response time across the refresh rate range, resulting in clear motion with very little blur behind fast-moving objects and very little overshoot with the right overdrive settings.
It supports Adaptive Sync variable refresh rate (VRR) technology, which can reduce screen tearing, and it’s compatible with both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards for G-SYNC and FreeSync compatibility, respectively. The IPS panel delivers wide viewing angles, is great for co-op gaming, and has excellent gray uniformity, great accuracy out of the box, and an incredible SDR color gamut. It’s great for office use or media creators, with good ergonomics, superb gradient handling, and good text clarity. It has good reflection handling and decent peak brightness in SDR, meaning visibility won’t be an issue in most rooms.
Unfortunately, it’s not the best choice for a dark room, as it has low contrast and just okay black uniformity. There’s a local dimming feature, which is a nice touch, but it’s terrible overall, so it’s best not to use it. Despite its flaws, it’s a great, well-rounded monitor that should please most people.
#2 ASUS TUF VG32VQ
The ASUS TUF VG32VQ is the best 32 inch 1440p 144Hz monitor we’ve tested. It’s a great gaming monitor, with an excellent response time at the max refresh rate, resulting in very clear motion with little blur behind fast-moving objects. It also has outstanding low input lag, meaning you can respond quickly to the action on-screen. It supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, reducing tearing when your PC can’t keep up with the refresh rate of the screen.
The large, high-resolution screen delivers great text clarity and sharp images. The curved screen also delivers a more immersive gaming experience while also bringing the sides of the screen into your field of view. It has a very good contrast ratio, resulting in deep blacks in a dark room, and bright room viewing is great, thanks to its great peak brightness and impressive reflection handling. However, it doesn’t have a local dimming feature, and if you want to use it for HDR gaming, it doesn’t make highlights pop.
Sadly, it doesn’t perform as well at 60Hz, as it has a noticeably slower response time with more overshoot. It also has narrow viewing angles, so it’s not ideal for co-op gaming. Although it has its flaws, it’s a good monitor overall with great gaming performance that should please most gamers.
#3 ASUS PG278QR 27″
The PG278QR is a 2560×1440 monitor that has a 165Hz refresh rate and a 1ms response time.
It’s a WQHD TN panel monitor that has a slim bevel design and is G-Sync compatible.
It also comes with 16.7 million display colors and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio. It offers one DisplayPort and HDMI port, as well as two USB 3.0 ports.
This is a high-resolution monitor that performs incredibly well.
#4 LG 27GN950-B
4K gaming is a premium endeavor. You need a colossal amount of rendering power to hit decent frame rates at such a high resolution. But if you’re rocking a top-shelf graphics card, like an RTX 3080(opens in new tab) or RX 6800 XT(opens in new tab) then this dream can be a reality.
The LG UltraGear is the first 4K, Nano IPS, gaming monitor with 1ms response times, that’ll properly show off your superpowered GPU. Coming in with Nvidia G-Sync and AMD’s FreeSync adaptive refresh compatibility, this slick slim-bezel design even offers LG’s Sphere Lighting 2.0 RGB visual theatrics.
And combined with the crazy-sharp detail that comes with the 4K pixel grid, that buttery smooth 144Hz is pretty special.
While it does suffer from a little characteristic IPS glow, it appears mostly at the screen extremities when you’re spying darker game scenes. This isn’t an issue most of the time, but the HDR is a little disappointing as, frankly, 16 edge-lit local dimming zones do not a true HDR panel make.
The color fidelity of the NanoIPS panel is outstanding.
What is most impressive, however, is the Nano IPS tech that offers a wider color gamut and stellar viewing angles. And the color fidelity of the NanoIPS panel is outstanding.
LG’s default calibration is virtually faultless, with impeccable detail in both black and white scales. Beyond the strict metrics, it’s a seriously vibrant and punchy display in terms of image quality on the Windows desktop.
This screen pops.
Hop in game and it’s just as impressive. We’ll never tire of the buttery smooth goodness that is 144Hz. But combined with the crazy-sharp detail that comes with the 4K pixel grid, well, it’s pretty special.
The LG UltraGear 27GN950-B bags you a terrific panel with exquisite IPS image quality. Despite the lesser HDR capabilities, it also nets beautiful colors and contrast for your games too. G-Sync offers stable pictures and smoothness, and the speedy refresh rate and response times back this up too.
And while the lack of HDMI 2.1 and USB Type-C are a little limiting, especially looking forward, right now it’s one of the best monitors going.
#5 Dell S2722DGM
Much like the mystical ways of the Force, PC gaming is all about balance. There’s little point weighting your system too heavily in one direction without paying attention to the whole package. Why bother pairing your RTX 3080 Ti with a 60Hz 1080p screen? Likewise, why spend big on a 4K monitor when you’re only sporting a Radeon RX 6600?
The classic 27-inch Dell S2722DGM marries that screen real estate with a 2560 x 1440 native resolution, which gives you a great pixel pitch for fine detail. At 1440p it’s also a decent resolution for getting high frame rates without the GPU demands of a 4K display. It’s also capable of delivering that resolution at 165Hz, which is appreciated.
At 2ms GtG response, it’s just a hair behind the 1ms and 0.5ms ratings of the best IPS panels, so you’re covered when it comes to speed. That said, you can find quicker panels if you really want to chase speed. This VA panel does have a high contrast ratio, at least, given the technology’s inherent strong contrast.
As for picture quality, the Dell S2722DGM is a reasonably punchy and vibrant monitor considering it’s a pure SDR panel. The strong inherent contrast certainly helps with that, ensuring you don’t feel short-changed running games like Cyberpunk 2077, which support HDR, in SDR mode.
We’d steer clear of MPRT mode, which hammers the panel’s brightness and vibrancy. ‘Extreme’ mode, which is rated at 2ms, does suffer from a whiff of overshoot, but that’s only just visible in-game, while ‘Super fast’ resolves the overshoot but allows just a little smearing of darker tones.
USB Type-C connectivity doesn’t feature. But the dual HDMI and a single DisplayPort connections are just fine, even if the HDMI ports top out at 144Hz rather than 165Hz.
This Dell monitor is most importantly available at a great price. Dell delivers high-quality gaming panels, with all the features you need and a few extraneous ones to bump up the price. And that makes it one of the best gaming monitors for most PC gamers today.
#6 GIGABYTE M28U 28″
The M28U ticks all the boxes for both the PC gamer and the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 owner looking for an affordable 4K resolution gaming solution. It features a stunning 28-inch IPS panel, which delivers excellent picture quality and depth of color. However, its 28-inch screen size is a touch smaller than I’d usually recommend to get the most out of the 4K resolution.
You’ll want some scaling enabled in Windows or your operating system of choice to get the most out of it, but it’s still a superb size for pixel density and detail to shine through without overpowering the desktop—next to my 32-inch monitor it feels far less imposing.
The big sell for gamers will be the 144Hz (120Hz on console) refresh rate and 2ms MPRT response time. That’s certainly quick enough for our tastes, and to look good while delivering that speed is a huge deal.
The inclusion of an HDMI 2.1 port mean it’s quite multi-faceted for its price.
This monitor is also rated to DisplayHDR 400, though its brightness is the fairly standard 300 cd/m2. I wouldn’t consider its HDR capabilities a big deal either way, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend you pick up this monitor specifically for its HDR capabilities.
As for the design, we found the monitor stand to be a little cheap.
It’s sturdy but limited in its movement to just height and tilt adjustments. It’s also a little bit cheap-looking, and the underside relies on pads that are glued on for grip to the desk. On my review sample, these pads have already started to peel away with the small adjustments I’ve made over time and may end up having to be replaced just to keep the screen steady.
This is where Gigabyte may have cut corners to make the M28U as inexpensive as it is, however. But features like the inclusion of an HDMI 2.1 port mean it’s quite multi-faceted for its price. Gigabyte has made no major sacrifice to tick all the checkboxes with the M28U, and although it’s still quite a lot of money to throw down on a monitor alone, other 4K monitors with this sort of feature set are usually found at a much higher price point.