Best Gaming Monitor Under $300: 2024 Reviews

You may be surprised to find that $300 can buy you some great gaming monitors. With so many solid options on the market in this price range, we’ve put together a list of our favorites, along with their stats, pros and cons. We also have a buying guide so you understand the best features you’ll need for your gaming monitor. 

Best Gaming Monitors Under $300 in 2024

How to Choose a Gaming Monitor Under $300

Now we’ll break down all the tech specs and jargon that we threw around in the reviews. We want to help you buy the best monitor for your needs.

Panel type and why it matters

When buying a monitor, the underlying panel type will massively impact your experience.

There are three main monitor panel types to know:

• TN (Twisted Nematic) – Very cheap, but also very fast and responsive.
• VA (Vertical Alignment) – A bit more expensive than TN, but with great improvements to picture quality.
• IPS (In-Panel Switching) – The most expensive, but the best in regards to picture quality and color accuracy.

We recommend IPS where possible, since its downsides are becoming increasingly minimal due to advancements in monitor technology. (It used to have much poorer refresh rates and response times.) However, TN is also worth considering for the most serious eSports professionals, and VA offers a nice in-between with some displays. (VA is also the best at handling dark scenes in movies and games since it doesn’t have IPS’ always-on backlights.)

Pros

• TN – Cheap, the fastest pixel response time, the highest refresh rates
• IPS – The best color reproduction and viewing angles, second-best pixel response time, second-best refresh rates
• VA – The best at displaying dark scenes, the second-best at color reproduction and viewing angles

Cons

• TN – The worst color reproduction and viewing angles
• IPS – Backlight bleed hurts dark scenes, the most expensive
• VA – The worst pixel response time and refresh rates

Understanding screen size, resolution, and PPI

When evaluating picture quality, it’s important to combine resolution and screen size to create a more important metric, called PPI (or Pixels Per Inch). PPI will determine the actual perceived fidelity of a screen, with a PPI of around ~90 the ideal target for most PC monitors at regular viewing distances. This is the PPI targeted by 24-inch 1080p monitors.

Ideal Screen Sizes for Common Resolutions

• 1080p – 24-inch or smaller (~89-91 PPI @ 24 inches)
• 1440p – 32-inch or smaller (90 PPI @ 32 inches, 108 PPI @ 27 inches)
• 4K – 32-inch or smaller (137 PPI @ 32 inches, 163 PPI @ 27 inches)

Understanding refresh rate and frame rate

In-game frame rate (also known as FPS, or frames per second) is a big deal to PC and competitive gamers. The more frames you get within a certain span of time, the more visually smooth the image will look…as long as your display can keep up.

Strongly related to FPS is a monitor’s refresh rate. The refresh rate, measured in Hertz, counts the number of times the screen can “refresh” (display a new image) in a second. This means that your display refresh rate serves as a limiter on the maximum in-game FPS that you actually see. Most monitors and TVs use 60 Hz, but many gaming monitors push Hz into the hundreds for smoother gaming.

Here are some common refresh rate targets:

• 60 Hz – 60 FPS: The standard for most to consider a game “smooth”. Was often halved to 30 FPS by games during the PS4/XB1 console generation.
• 75 Hz – 75 FPS: A marginal improvement over 60 FPS. Shouldn’t be very noticeable.
• 100 Hz – 100 FPS: Where the most noticeable improvement from 60 FPS can be seen. Good for single-player games where you want increased fluidity in a high refresh monitor.
• 120 Hz – 120 FPS: The original high refresh standard. May feel slightly better than 100 FPS.
• 144 Hz – 144 FPS: The current high refresh standard. Should feel incredibly smooth, but not much more so than 120.
• 240 Hz – 240 FPS: An emerging high refresh standard. While many gamers may not notice it, high-level competitive players do.

What is response time?

Pixel response time is a measurement of how quickly a pixel can shift from one color to another, usually G2G (Gray-to-Gray). Pixel response time affects perceived unwanted motion blur, also called smearing or ghosting. If it’s too high (slow), then motion will be less clear and harder to track, which is problematic for fast-paced games with rapid camera movement. Also, if the response time is too high, then you may not see an actual benefit to the higher refresh rate. 

What is VRR? What is the difference between G-Sync and FreeSync?

VRR (Variable Refresh Rate), refers to a monitor’s ability to support real-time refresh rate changes. (ie= game running at 40 FPS, monitor runs at 40 Hz with exact pacing with frames so as to prevent screen tearing and lessen perceived input lag caused by inconsistent frame-pacing or buffering). FreeSync and G-Sync both do this, and until recently were exclusive to AMD and Nvidia.

Over time, FreeSync support has become standard on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs, but G-Sync (in some cases) may not support AMD GPUs. While these technologies do the same thing, traditional G-Sync (not ‘G-Sync Compatible’, which in today’s lingo means FreeSync) requires extra hardware in the monitor, which raises prices. Now that FreeSync has mostly taken over as the standard, though, you shouldn’t need to pay extra for this feature.

VRR functions as a hardware version of V-Sync, software used to synchronize frames to screen refreshes at the cost of increased input lag and more severe performance stutters when dropping below the target frame rate. VRR is able to do everything V-Sync can but without those downsides, so we highly recommend it for gamers. 

Does HDR matter?

In PC monitors…not really, for the time being. In display technology, HDR (High Dynamic Range) refers to the ability to use individual discrete backlighting zones that can get super bright or turn itself off completely. On big 4K HDR TVs, this isn’t much of an issue, since you have plenty of physical space for all these backlighting zones. For smaller PC monitors, though, you have physical limitations- so most PC HDR implementations cannot compete with TV HDR implementations. If you want the most vibrant colors possible in your PC gaming experience, get a color calibration tool and an IPS panel.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the average HZ for a gaming monitor?

 60Hz is a good refresh rate for a casual gamer. However, many gaming monitors have a baseline of around 144Hz, which is considerably better. Higher performance monitors will have even higher refresh rates, but 144Hz seems to be more common. 

Is a curved monitor better for gaming?

It all depends on preference, but many gamers swear that the curved shape makes for a more immersive visual experience. It also creates less eye strain compared to straight monitors. That said, your preference is all that matters. Some gamers find the curve far too distracting. 

What size monitor for gaming monitors?

It depends on how close you’re sitting to the monitor. If you’re within 3 feet or less, go for 24 inch choices. 27 inches are good options for sitting 3-4 feet away. If you’re sitting 5 feet away, 32 inches is a good fit. As you probably get by now, the further away you sit, the bigger the monitor should be.