Update: There are now six, not five, 1440p gaming monitor deals we think are well worth their salt in the sub-$200 bracket, thanks to the Gigabyte G27Q being on sale for a cent shy of $200. This adds another IPS monitor to the list, too.
Prime Day is as good as here, and monitor vendors seem to be going a little ham in the sub-$200 1440p department, offering these five cracking discounts for what were, until pretty recently, some of the best gaming monitors on the market. These aren't your run-of-the-mill sub-100 Hz displays, either, because each of them features a refresh rate of 165Hz or higher.
- We're curating the best Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.
Display technology seems to be developing and moving on quicker than many other PC gaming technologies. And with each new improvement, the tech that previously made for top-end gaming monitors becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous. Thus, today, some of the best gaming monitor deals are high refresh rate 1440p ones in the sub-$200 bracket. Lovely.
This is, in no small part, thanks to the latest big display panel improvement in the gaming PC market: OLED. OLED displays have been around a while but were primarily used in TVs and phones. Only recently have OLED gaming monitors hit the PC gaming market.
Don't go forgetting about IPS and VA, though. Although prices are dropping, OLED monitors are still hella expensive, and there are still big problems with using them as gaming monitors. IPS and VA panels aren't yesteryear just yet, but we're starting to see significant price drops for them. Especially in that 27-inch, 1440p, 165 Hz (or higher) sweet spot that I'm highlighting here.
VA panels have some stunning deep blacks and wide contrast ratios, and IPS panels offer tremendous colour accuracy as well as (usually) quicker response times. VA panels can sometimes have slow response times, but this isn't always the case. Samsung's Odyssey monitors, for example, such as the Odyssey G5 that's currently on offer for $200 (save $49), tend to do quite well on this front.
There's also a couple of IPS options in there, if you'd rather opt for something that will better guarantee quicker response times. The Acer Nitro SV271U M3bmiiprx is on sale for just $200 (save $90) and features a 180 Hz refresh rate and 0.5-1 ms gray-to-gray response time. That should be plenty quick for competitive gaming.
There are a couple of options in there for those of you on a tighter budget, too. The Acer Nitro ED270U and ASRock Phantom PG27Q15R2A are both venerable 1440p monitors featuring 165 Hz or 170 Hz FreeSync Premium refresh rates. The former has a $100 saving and the latter an $86.22 saving. Personally, I'd opt for the latter, though, because, at 550 nits, it can more than double the peak brightness of the Nitro monitor.
Pros and cons, though—there's plenty to sink your teeth into to compare all these monitors. I'd be hard-pressed to choose between them, myself, if I didn't prefer IPS panels. If VA's are your thing, too, you might have a tough choice ahead of you.
