As you can imagine, the more pixels there are to display, the more important it is that your monitor has a high refresh rate, especially when it comes to gaming. Typically, the standard has been 120 hertz refresh rate in gaming monitors, but Asus’ 27 inch MG279Q monitor features a 144 hertz refresh rate. The quicker a monitor can refresh the display, the more smooth the visual experience will be. The refresh rate in the monitor works in tandem with a low response time (which just specifies how quickly the monitor can send and receive new information) in order to make a seamless visual transition. Sometimes, if the response rate is not quick enough, some residual pixels can remain on the screen as the monitor is trying to refresh new ones. This is called ‘ghosting’. Although it’s standard to have a 4 millisecond response time on many gaming monitors, Samsung, LG, BenQ, Viewsonic, and more all offer 2k and 4k monitors that have 1 millisecond response times.
As far as the internal specs are concerned, response time and refresh rate are the main factors that contribute to a smooth, immersive viewing experience, but the physical panel type of the monitor can also play into this. First there’s the matter of how the monitor lights up: either with LCD or LED. The main difference lies in the material that is used to light the liquid crystals in the display. In LCD, it’s cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL’s) and in LEDs, it’s tiny light emitting and low-energy consuming diodes. This is the preferred type in most monitors, because it consumes less power and produces less harsh light so that darker colors appear more vivid. Additionally, LED monitors can be much thinner than LCD ones.
Newer LCD monitors have improved with the implementation of IPS (In-plane switching) panels. For some it’s a matter of preference, but where the IPS panels have shown their strength is in accurate color reproduction, great for content creators who want to do photo editing or graphic design. The panel type you choose depends more on preference than anything else. Samsung is well known for championing the IPS panel in their monitors, and many people enjoy using them for gaming as well.