Exploring the Latest Trends of Gaming Monitors

By Ken |
As many gamers already know, things that matters the most while gaming is TA panel long lasting, smooth gaming experiences without input lag. A high performance computer system is also important when it comes to "getting the best gaming experiences." All the hardware, such as processors, memory, graphics cards and solid-state hard disk are aimed to match a higher standard to support your high resolution output.

Usually, screen size and response time were two factors that gamers would consider when purchasing a gaming monitor. Recently, more and more players have become fascinated with curved panels and high refresh rates monitors. So what type of product will be ideal as your next gaming monitor? What are the top features that you should know? Let's explore the trends!

What makes your gaming experiences better?

Generally speaking, the gaming monitors basically provide better color performance and lower response time than non-gaming monitor, that help you to have the best experience in game. Recently, the curved design and high refresh rate specifications have become popular in the market.

High Refresh Rate : 144Hz High refresh rate

The smooth screen playback of the game is definitely a base requirement. In addition to a high-end processor and graphics cards, the response time and refresh rate of the screen are also very important. In recent years, gaming monitor manufacturers have been putting more emphasis on higher refresh rates rather than response time. Refresh rate refers to how many frames can be presented by the monitor per second. Typical monitors are 60Hz, which means the frame is updated 60 times per second.

According to the Witsview market research analysis report, from 2016 to 2019, high refresh rate (>100Hz) gaming monitor sales gradually increased. It grew by about four to five times from 2016 to 2018. This dramatic growth rate reflects the market demand. For gaming monitors, this number is raised to 144Hz or even higher. Going from 60Hz to 144Hz, the smoothness gives a significant increase to the end user. Especially when playing first-person shooter games, where the screen is required to quickly switch and move the camera angle. Of course, all of this requires to be backed by the performance of mid to high-end graphics card.

▲Source: Witsview Market Research

Curved panel for better gaming experiences

To get the best gaming experience, you need to consider the curvature, viewing distance and screen size. The viewing distance in its application scenario is shorter than that of the movie theaters and living rooms, and the mainstream specification for its curved screen is 1800R, its magnitude of bending is more pronounced.

In addition, the percentage of high refresh rate curved panels is also increasing by year. Compared to flat panels, the ratio of shipment of curved panels has grown approximately 40% from 2016 to 2018, and the percentage of curved monitors in 2018 has taken 60%. This tells that curved monitors with high refresh rates are becoming more and more popular in the market. MSI has also see the potential market for gaming monitors, and has started developing high-quality curved monitors from 2016, in order to cater to the market demand.

▲Source: Witsview Market Research

27-inch, WQHD Monitor: Current Gaming Sweet Spot

The aspect ratio of monitors in the market today is mostly 16:9, and there are mainly three resolution specifications: 1920x1080 (FHD/ 1080p) is the mainstream standard, with the percentage of shipments of up to 62% for all panel manufacturers. A higher end resolution would be 2560x1440 (WQHD) which accounts for 33% of all shipments, and one step above that are 3840x2160 (UHD/ 4K) monitors, which makes up less than 3% of all shipments.

▲Source: Witsview Market Research

Size wise, it has been observed that there is a declining trend for 24 inch monitors, and the larger 27 inch and 32 inch specifications have shown positive growth. Currently, 27 inch monitors take up 38% of the market share, and approximately 20% for 32 inch monitors. From a gamers’ perspective, we would recommend having high resolutions paired up with large screen sizes; as 1080p resolution is fairly grainy on 32 inch monitors, we recommend buying 24 inch and 27 inch monitors for 1080p, and 27 inch or 32 inch monitors for 1440p resolution.

By the way, gaming requires the games to run smoothly under high resolution, high refresh rate conditions. On top of a matching monitor, a powerful mid to high-end graphics card is also indispensable. For the current market, the core architecture and performance for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX series graphics cards have all been enhanced, and these graphics cards are able to support gaming experience at higher specifications. Take a GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards for example, according to the test results, under 2560x1440 (WQHD) resolution and highest settings, great gaming performance has been confirmed for all games tested. See following table for the test values. Among the games testes, Call of Duty was able to reach 149.9 Average FPS; if an environment with GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card was used, then it will be sufficient to support high resolution, high refresh rate gaming Monitors, and this will achieve the best performance.

▲Data measured at QHD resolution with Ultra setting

Consider a HDR Monitor for Gaming?

Improving graphics details has always been the most essential part of computer monitors, and HDR is a technology not to be missed by any gamer. In simple terms, HDR (High Dynamic Range) refers to being able to enhance the bright and dark parts of the picture, so that the bright parts won’t look plain white, and the dark parts aren’t completely black, and you will be able to see the details in the picture. For example, the explosion effects in movies won’t be just a bright burst anymore, and instead you’ll see details within the explosions such as light beams; a starry sky would not be just a color gradation of the three colors white, gray and black, but a realistic image that truthfully represents a star-studded sky. This kind of effects are mainly achieved with the high brightness (over 300 nit) and high contrast (over 3000:1) of monitors.

Without doubt, HDR technology offers better color reproduction and gradient change between bright and dark, and is very helpful when it comes to the picture presentation of monitors. HDR effect is not only used on still photographs, more and more computer games now support HDR. At the same time, for video and audio contents on the Internet, services such as YouTube, Netflix and Apple TV are starting to offer videos with HDR effect. HDR contents are only going to become more and more popular, and since monitors are the hardware responsible for presenting the final picture, the future development trend for monitors will also fully adopt HDR technology, in order to enhance picture quality.

The World's Fastest Growing Gaming Monitor Brand: MSI

In conclusion, gaming monitors represent the high-end market, so higher quality products should be provided in order to meet the gamers’ needs. To provide an excellent visual feast, it is without doubt that curved panel, 144Hz refresh rate, WQHD and HDR will be listed as standard specifications for gaming monitors in the future.

MSI has devoted time and effort in the gaming market for many years, not only our motherboards, graphics cards and laptops are widely praised, we have also thoughtfully built gaming monitors for gamers. For gamers who specifically demand high resolution picture, MSI has launched 27 inch WQHD (2560x1440) gaming monitors Opitx MAG271CQR and Optix MPG27CQ, and a 32 inch monitor Optix MAG321CQR. It is easy to see the benefits to having high resolutions paired up with large screens, as gamers enjoy a larger available desktop space, they are able to multi-task more effectively, which improves efficiency when running various processes.

These three gaming monitors have all adopted VA panels with great contrast and color saturation, and are able to reproduce excellent picture quality. The ultra-narrow slim bezel is paired with the seamless curved screen design, providing an even stronger sense of immersive gaming experiences. Meanwhile, in order to have the game run more smoothly, on top of the response times being an extremely short 1ms for all these three monitor models, a more important thing to note is that their refresh rates are all 144Hz, which means that these monitors are capable of presenting 144 pictures per second, fully utilizing the gaming performance of your high-end graphics cards, so that even when you’re playing competitive blockbuster title video games which require fast screen switching speeds, the game will still run smoothly as projected on the monitors. All three of these monitor models share an overall design that is specifically dedicated for gaming, and are the best choice for gamers.
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