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These days, the best TVs for gaming aren't much different from the best TVs you can buy as a whole. But if you're hoping to make your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X games look their best, there are a few key features to keep in mind. To help you get the most from your living room setup, we've broken down a few tips for buying a good gaming TV and picked out a few well-reviewed options from across the price spectrum. What to look for in a gaming TV Whether you use it for gaming or not, all good TVs are built on the same foundations. You want a 4K resolution, enough brightness to overcome glare, a relatively high contrast ratio with deep and uniform black tones, wide viewing angles and colors that find the right balance between accuracy and saturation. For video games specifically, the ideal TV has a 120Hz refresh rate (or higher), VRR support, minimal input lag and fast motion response, with no blur or other unwanted artifacts behind quick-moving objects. Of course, finding a set that does all of this well and fits into your budget can be tricky. OLED and LCD For now, top OLED TVs generally offer the best picture quality for gaming or otherwise. But good OLED sets usually cost more than their LCD counterparts, and some models may not get bright enough for those who have their TV set in a particularly bright room. More specifically, modern OLED TVs may utilize different types of OLED display tech: WOLED (i.e., White OLED") or the newer QD-OLED. We won't dig too deep into how the two diverge in panel composition and subpixel structure, but the simplified version is that QD-OLED displays use a layer of quantum dots (hence the QD") to deliver a wider gamut of more vibrant colors than traditional WOLED sets. This doesn't mean all QD-OLED TVs are inherently better: How well an individual set performs is more important than the panel it uses, and some premium WOLED TVs like the LG G5 use a new "four-stack" structure to improve color purity and brightness. (Other models have used a display tech called Micro Lens Array (MLA) to greatly boost brightness as well.) Certain WOLED TVs may also handle reflections better or retain deeper black tones in a bright room. And either way, virtually all OLED TVs share the same core strengths. If you opt for an LCD TV - whether to save cash or stick in room with poor light control - an advanced backlight with smaller and more precise mini LEDs and effective full-array local dimming will usually improve contrast and lighting detail. Many of these TVs, including some budget-level models, also use quantum dots to enhance colors (and are labeled as "QLED" TVs). They usually aren't as vivid or fast in motion as the top OLED sets, but they're often brighter and more affordable, and the best can still produce an excellent image in their own right. HDMI 2.1 To get the most out of a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S, your TV should have full HDMI 2.1 support. This update to the HDMI spec enables a higher maximum bandwidth - 48 gigabits per second, up from HDMI 2.0's 18 Gbps - and a handful of features that are beneficial for gaming performance specifically. Those include variable refresh rate (VRR) and automatic low latency mode (ALLM), which we detail further below. Beyond that, perhaps the chief perk of HDMI 2.1 is its ability to transmit sharp 4K video up to a 120Hz refresh rate with modern consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, or up to 144Hz with a powerful gaming PC. Not every PS5 or Xbox Series X/S game supports frame rates that high - and some only do at lower resolutions - but those that do will look and feel especially fluid in motion. HDMI 2.1 also includes support for Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), which allows you to pass higher-quality lossless audio from a source device connected to the TV to a compatible soundbar or receiver. The more full HDMI 2.1 ports your TV has, the better. Full" is the key word there. As reported by TFT Central, because HDMI 2.1 is backwards compatible with HDMI 2.0, TV and monitor manufacturers have been allowed to brand HDMI ports as HDMI 2.1" even if they lack full (or any) support for the spec's upgraded features. We recommend a few TVs below that have true HDMI 2.1 ports, but if you're buying a new TV for gaming, make sure your chosen set isn't trying to hide any capabilities you may consider essential. While HDMI 2.1 is the latest and greatest today, it's worth noting that the HDMI Forum officially revealed a new HDMI 2.2 spec at CES 2025. This update promises a greater maximum bandwidth of 96 Gbps, which should technically enable even higher refresh rates and resolutions. It could also help reduce hiccups in audio and video syncing (i.e., annoying lip-sync errors). If history is any indication, though, we're still a bit away from HDMI 2.2 ports appearing on TVs you can actually buy. Even then, the only people who could take advantage of the theoretical resolutions and refresh rates allowed by the spec are those who connect a super-powerful gaming PC to their TV. But this could always change with whatever the next PlayStation and Xbox consoles bring. HDR - High Dynamic Range HDR refers to a TV's ability to display a wider range between the darkest and brightest parts of a picture. This can bring out details that would otherwise be missing on a standard dynamic range (SDR) TV, in both the very dark and (especially) very bright areas of an image. HDR typically comes with an improvement to color reproduction as well, displaying a larger palette of more vibrant colors that brings content closer to its creator's original vision. To get an HDR picture, you need both content that is mastered to take advantage of the tech and a TV capable of displaying that content. HDR also comes in a variety of formats, which are generally split between those that utilize static metadata (e.g., HDR10) and those that utilize dynamic metadata (e.g., HDR10+, Dolby Vision). In short, the latter allows a TV to optimize its brightness and colors on a per-scene or even per-frame basis, while the former uses one set of optimized settings for the entirety of the given content. Support for these formats can differ depending on the TV, content and game console you use. The Xbox Series X and S, for example, support Dolby Vision for gaming, while the PS5 does not. The good news is that most TVs you'd buy today are HDR-ready in some fashion, even on the budget end of the market. The catch is that some TVs are much better at getting the most out of HDR than others. The same goes for actual content mastered in HDR. With video games in particular, there aren't quite as many titles designed to take advantage of HDR as there are movies (though the number is growing all the time), and the variance in HDR quality tends to be wider. HGiG - HDR Gaming Interest Group HGiG is essentially a set of standards for gaming in HDR. It stands for the HDR Gaming Interest Group. Sony and Microsoft are both members, as are many TV makers and game developers. What this means is that, ideally, all the groups communicate information so that you can start up a new game on a console or PC and have it automatically recognize your display. Once that happens, the game can adjust its settings to that display's capabilities and give you the best picture quality possible, without losing details in the brightest or darkest areas of the screen. For example, daylight at the end of a dark tunnel may portray a brightly lit environment instead of looking like an overexposed white blob. This is a good thing, but the reality is a bit more complicated. Not all TVs highlight HGiG compatibility in their settings menu, while only some PlayStation and Xbox games recognize and follow the guidelines. If an HGiG option is listed in your TV's tone mapping settings, you should turn it on prior to running the console's HDR settings. Then, if you're playing a game that supports HDR and HGiG, you should be in good shape without having to adjust the various luminance levels again. Still, how all of this looks to you might differ depending on your TV and the game you're playing. Use whatever settings you think look best. ALLM - Auto Low Latency Mode ALLM lets a compatible source (like your PS5 or Xbox) tell your display to switch into a picture mode that reduces lag between receiving each frame of an image and displaying it on the TV. This cuts out additional processing that could be the milliseconds of difference between landing a precise input or not. Put another way, it lets your TV automatically enable its "Game" mode when it detects that you've launched a game. A good modern TV can do this without forcing you to enter any menus, then switch back when you'd rather watch a movie or TV show. VRR - Variable Refresh Rate VRR should sound familiar to most gamers at this point. Many players have experienced slowdown, screen tearing or stuttering as a system struggles to render each frame at the target speed, which is most commonly 60 or 30 fps on a TV. With VRR, everything stays in sync: Your display won't show the next frame until it's ready, which can make things feel smoother and more responsive, even if the system fails to deliver on its target frame rate. There are a few different implementations of VRR available, including Nvidia's G-Sync, AMD's FreeSync and the HDMI Forum's VRR spec, which is part of the full HDMI 2.1 standard. Both a TV and an input device need to support the same VRR tech for it to work, and different devices may only support VRR within a specific refresh rate window. On a 120Hz display, for instance, the PS5's VRR only works between 48Hz and 120Hz. As a reminder, the PS5 officially supports HDMI Forum VRR, the Xbox Series X and S support HDMI Forum VRR and FreeSync, while gaming PCs may support G-Sync or FreeSync depending on whether they use a Nvidia or AMD graphics card. A great gaming TV supports all the big VRR formats, but missing, say, G-Sync, isn't a killer if you only game on a PS5 or Xbox. 8K (You don't need it) One thing you don't need to worry about is 8K support. Although the PS5 and Xbox Series X are theoretically capable of outputting 8K video, almost no games are made for that resolution, and 8K's practical benefits are extremely minimal unless you plan on sitting unreasonably close to a massive TV. The few 8K TVs on the market are usually very expensive as well. Good gaming TVs you can get right now While we at Engadget do not formally review TVs, we've researched the market and rounded up a few sets that have been widely well-received by other professional review sites we trust, including Rtings, Wirecutter, Reviewed, PCMag and others. Keep in mind that there's never an ideal time to buy a new TV. Prices for today's models are always dropping, and next year's upgrades are always just around the corner. So if you see an 2024 version of one of the recommendations below at a deep discount, that may be a better value. Richard Lawler contributed to a previous version of this report.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/best-gaming-tv-131509986.html?src=rss
