If you've got a hankerin' for a new monitor this Black Friday season, but you're not quite ready to make the leap to 4K, then allow me to introduce the Alienware AW2720HF 1080p gaming monitor. It's big, it's fast, it's got custom lighting effects, and right now it's down to $299.00 at Gamestop.
The AW2720HF is a 27-inch display with a 240Hz refresh rate (that's fast) and a true 1ms response (that's also fast). It's compatible with both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, so your bases are covered no matter which GPU brand you've got parked inside your PC, and the IPS display panel promises a clear, full-color view even at weird angles.
We declared in our rundown of TN vs IPS displays that IPS is "the best panel for gaming," with the one caveat being that they're expensive. Not so much an issue here.
The monitor also offers a dynamic on-screen display with preset game modes and a built-in FPS counter, and customizable AlienFX lighting featuring "dynamic lighting effects tied directly to the in-game action" and the ability to create unique lighting themes for more than 145 games.
It might seem a bit counterintuitive to think about throwing money at a brand-new 1080p display in this era of 4K, but as we say in our best gaming monitors guide, PC gaming is all about balance: "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 AW2720HF is all about beefy size and blistering speed, with no tearing, ghosting, or artifacts: If games like Valorant, Destiny 2, or Apex Legends are your cup of tea, this could very well be your monitor.
And let's not kid ourselves: It's not as though 1080p is hideous by any measure. If you're currently rocking an older 19 or 22-inch display and want to step things up without having upgrade your entire PC, this would not be a bad way to go at all.
