Best New LED Gaming Monitors 2011 - 2012

Here's a few terms you should know before making your final decision.

LED or LCD?

LED or "light emitting diodes" are an older technology which was adapted in order to use for backlighting with today's LCD or "liquid crystal display" monitors. Previously CCFL or "cold-cathode fluorescent lamps" were used. This was certainly an efficient way to begin but LED technology had several advantages which included being more energy efficient, lightweight, thinner, and that it didn't emit mercury like CCFL technology. When they were first released LED LCD monitors were considerably more expensive than the CCFL LCD which allowed the older technology to stick around for a long time. Now that LED monitors have come down in price older LCD monitors are being discontinued to make room for the better overall technology which since starting had made many strides towards better color accuracy and contrast ratios.

Response Time

Although some may argue that anything under 5ms isn't noticeable I still prefer my gaming monitor to have a response time of 2ms or less. The definition of response time is basically the time it takes for a pixel to go from the deepest black to the whitest white and then to return. A faster response time reduces the ghosting and blurring that is sometimes seen in action sequences.

Refresh Rate

Maybe just as important as your response time is your refresh rate which measure the amount of times that your monitors draw information. The higher this rate the better. On 3D gaming monitors a 120hz refresh rate is ideal, but anything around 60Hz is good enough for a standard 2D monitor.

Resolution

Resolution is basically the amount of pixels that your display has. Today, 1920 (horizontal) x 1080 (vertical) pixels is considered full high definition. Other IPS panel monitors go beyond this resolution to give photo editors additional pixels to work with.

The Acer HN274H BMIIID 27 Inch LED monitor is my choice for best gaming monitor of 2012. It gives you a crystal clear picture for both 3D and 2D viewing that I've never experienced before. Another solid option in this category is the Samsung S27A950D.





Acer HN274H BMIIID 3D 27-Inch LED Monitor - Black

Amazon Price: $619.99
Verified Gamer Review: I've been waiting patiently and checking the internet constantly for over a year for a 27" 3D Vision monitor to come out, ever since Asus teased us last year. Finally I now have the monitor of my dreams and it exceeds all of my expectations... The ghosting is the least I've seen, and the size is perfect. With the widescreen view on this baby the immersion level is unreal. I really like the dot pitch, there is no "tearing".. this monitor is awesome, and I am stoked because products like this will be driving the 3D market and I love 3D.