The 7 Best Gaming TVs for PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch, and PC

Choosing the right size TV for your space can make or break your gaming setup. It’s easy to assume that bigger is always better, but the truth is that you should pick the size of your TV to fit the room where you plan to put it.

According to The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, you should set up your TV so the screen fills approximately 30-40 percent of your field of view. Sit too far away, and you’ll have trouble seeing all the little details on the screen. Sit too close, and you may risk straining your eyes over time.

Thankfully, this is a question nearly every TV buyer faces at some point. Generally speaking, you should measure the distance between the screen and where you most often sit to watch. Divide the distance by two and choose a screen that’s at least the number you get.

Modern TVs use a range of display technologies to generate the brightest, sharpest image possible. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to each option: For example, a TV with an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display can deliver a rich, high contrast picture, but often doesn’t get as bright as a QLED or LED display.

LED/LCD: Right now, most standard, sub-$1,000 TVs feature a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) or Light-Emitting Diode (LED) display. The most common option, LCD and LED TVs feature edge-lit designs where all of the light comes from the side of the screen, or have individual dimming zones for improved contrast.

They can be designed to be very bright and offer a tremendous viewing experience, or budget-oriented with reduced picture quality and features. It’s important to check the specs for total brightness levels and how the TV handles dimming to gauge its level of high-dynamic range (HDR) performance.

OLED: Many experts consider Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) TVs to be the best option you can buy right now. (Us included.) Instead of using LED backlighting, each pixel of an OLED is a “self-emitting” backlight that can be individually lit and controlled. That allows the TV to turn off pixels to enhance contrast and create a perfectly black image. Simply put, OLED displays offer the best contrast, deepest blacks, and the highest dynamic range on any display.

However, OLED technology is currently found mostly in high-end models. They come with drawbacks, too: Some may not get as bright as QLED and Mini-LED-equipped panels, though LG and other manufacturers have made great strides in dealing with this issue in recent revisions. Lastly, OLED panels are generally more susceptible to burn-in, where static elements may leave shadows on the screen if left for prolonged periods of time, though this is much less of an issue with later generations thanks to built-in protection measures like screen savers.

QLED: Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diode (QLED) panels augment traditional LED displays with a layer of nanoparticles called “quantum dots,” which enhance certain wavelengths of color when illuminated, increasing brightness and color saturation. Though they feature the same display panels as LED TVs, they are generally considered a class of their own.

In recent years, multiple manufacturers have added quantum dots to OLED screens, creating QD-OLED or “hybrid OLED” TVs. The Quantum dots in QD-OLEDs generally enhance the OLED’s brightness of an OLED screen, which is generally considered one of the panel type’s drawbacks, with minimal impact on its superior contrast.

Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that some brands offer proprietary iterations of QLED technology: For example, Hisense makes “Ultra LED” or “ULED” TVs, which function very similarly to QLED TVs from Samsung and other brands.

Mini-LED: Mini-LED is another evolution of traditional LED displays: instead of using standard LEDs, Mini-LED TVs use smaller LED chips that are clustered tightly together. TVs with these panels are usually brighter and have more local dimming zones for increased contrast. Some Mini-LED displays also feature quantum dots: Combining the two technologies generally creates a very bright, color-rich picture.

Because of their brightness, Mini-LEDs are well suited for rooms with lots of bright daylight. They tend to be more expensive than LED TVs, but cheaper than OLEDs. They’re also prone to blooming, where light from bright areas of the image pollutes darker parts of the display, causing a shimmer or halo effect (think movie credits where you have bright white text on a black background).

A great gaming TV with excellent picture quality depends on a lot of factors that make up the whole, and resolution is just one piece of the puzzle. While some lower resolution TVs are still on the market, mostly for small screen sizes, 4K (3840 × 2160) resolution has become the standard TV resolution, and the current console generation (and most streaming services) have cemented 4K as the gold standard. Many upmarket TVs even use AI processors to upscale 1080p content into 4K, as well.

I know what you’re going to say next. Is it worth getting an 8K TV? The short answer is no. There is little to no 8K content available right now, so you're paying through the nose for technology that you can’t use regularly for the foreseeable future.

Besides resolution, color gamut, peak brightness, contrast ratio, and HDR performance all work together to create that all-important display image.

To judge a TV’s picture on a technical level, you want to look at its color gamut, which tells you the range of colors it can accurately produce. These ranges, measured by percentage, tell you how rich that screen is likely to appear. A TV with a wider color gamut immediately looks more engaging, creating deeper, brighter colors. TV manufacturers measure color gamut across multiple ranges, also known as “color spaces” – the sRGB/Rec.709 space covers standard definition, while DCI-P3 and Rec. 2020 measure color enhanced by HDR.

It isn’t necessary to have a deep understanding of these figures to pick the right TV, though: The best way to see if a TV catches your eye is to watch it. If you’re stuck and splitting hairs, or want to know their maximum potential, look for the highest DCI-P3 and sRGB coverage you can find within your price bracket.

Brightness and contrast are other key elements of picture quality. A TV’s peak brightness, measured in nits, tells you how illuminant a screen can become. The contrast ratio measures the difference between light and dark and is a good indicator of dynamic range. Both directly impact a TV’s dynamic range and how well it can perform in HDR.

For the best HDR experience, we recommend looking for a TV with at least 1,000 nits at peak brightness and a minimum 3,000:1 contrast ratio. Remember that OLEDs tend to have better contrast ratios, though LEDs typically offer more nits for your money.

HDR is an approach that can enhance your TV’s viewing and gaming experience. Most modern TVs have this feature, which boosts brightness and offers better contrast and more vivid colors. This makes HDR ideal for playing captivating games or watching sports events. There are several different standards, including HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG, which work in similar ways.

Refresh rate, or the number of times your TV can update the image on screen each second, has always been a core concern for PC players eyeing new gaming monitors, but it has also become a notable luxury feature on modern TVs. Most TVs run at 60 hertz (Hz), which means the TV updates the images 60 times each second. New mid- and high-end TVs may offer a higher refresh rate, up to 120 Hz, to match the upper limits of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

A higher refresh rate allows for smoother animation in games, making them feel more responsive. "Allows" is an important caveat here: Not every PS5 and Xbox Series X game can run in 120 Hz. (TechRadar has a helpful list of 120 Hz-compatible games on those platforms.)

That said, we expect more and more games to be capable of running at higher frame rates in the future, so it’s a benefit that will grow more important over time. (We can only hope that your TV will last more than a few years.)

If you’re shopping for a mid-range (sub-$1000) TV that offers a higher frame rate, keep in mind that some manufacturers use video processing to artificially “upscale” the native frame rate of the panel to mimic a higher one (e.g., 60 to 120), describing it as the “effective” frame rate. We recommend gamers avoid it, as an effective frame rate generated by the TV, rather than your console, could impact how a game “feels” as you play. The good news is that more and more TVs out there support native refresh rates up to 144 Hz, similar to many gaming monitors.

In addition to upping the frame rate, you should look out for TVs that support variable refresh rate (VRR) technology. When a TV’s refresh rate and the frame rate of a game don’t match, ugly artifacts and screen tearing can occur. VRR allows the television to dynamically adjust its refresh rate to match what’s coming from your console or PC, creating a smoother, more consistent image.

It’s a standard feature in gaming monitors and is increasingly supported by the best gaming TVs. The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S have had VRR support since launch, while the PlayStation 5 added the feature to its console in 2022 for select games.

To play games in 4K at 120 Hz, you will need to plug your console or PC into an HDMI 2.1 port, which has enough bandwidth to support such a high resolution and frame rate. (Eventually, you will also need it to play games in 8K at 60 Hz.) Any TV that supports 120 Hz will have at least one HDMI 2.1 port, but some TVs will only put them in one to two of their four HDMI ports, while others will have HDMI 2.1 in every slot.

Every screen introduces at least a small amount of input lag. It takes time–often mere milliseconds–for each signal to go from your controller to your console or PC when you press a button, then for your TV to refresh to show what you did.

Typically, for a smoother gaming experience, we recommend looking for a TV that introduces no more than 30 milliseconds of input lag. Generally speaking, this is short enough that you will no longer notice the delay between pressing an input on your controller and seeing the reaction on screen.

Since TVs are steadily getting more advanced, with rich features and picture enhancements, achieving low latency can be difficult. That said, more and more TVs offer a “game mode” setting, which disables some video processing features to reduce lag without substantially impacting image quality.

Display technology is one of the most important considerations you can make when shopping for a TV for gaming, but should follow your budget. OLED screens, for example, offer the best picture quality and responsiveness but can be much more expensive than competing QLED screens. 

If you’re between two models and the price is close, it may be worth saving up to step up to the higher tier display, but remember that it’s possible to find a great TV across all display types. It just might take a bit more research to find the model that meets your needs.

There are some amazing 8K TVs out there, but we recommend holding off on buying one unless you’re okay spending a lot of extra money for very limited benefits. While stunning, 8K TVs face the same challenge that 4K TVs did when they made their debut: A lack of content. The 8K Association, a non-profit dedicated to expanding the 8K ecosystem, notes that many film and TV studios are creating content using 8K cameras. 

Still, it’s likely to be several years before they start releasing content in 8K. By the time that happens, there will be more affordable 8K TVs for you to buy with improved features.

In gaming, 8K is also mostly out of reach. Only the most powerful and expensive PC video cards can handle it. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 can play games at 8K but only at reduced settings (or games with simple graphics) or with the help of its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology. Even then, results will vary. 

While the PS5 and Xbox Series X can technically output to an 8K display, they will still render the games in 4K. As a result, the image quality could actually look worse than on a native 4K screen.

Simply put, 8K TVs may be here, but the true 8K experience is still pretty far off. Stick with a high-quality 4K TV and you will get the best possible experience in and out of games.

Burn-in, or image retention, is a result of OLED pixels degrading at different rates. This usually isn’t a concern unless you leave your TV on for long stretches while showing a static image, or playing a channel with static elements on-screen like a channel logo or the captions on news programs. 

Manufacturers are aware of these risks and usually include multiple safety measures designed to minimize the damage, such as pixel shifting, pixel refreshing, and automatic backlight adjustment.

That said, there are also some steps you can take to protect your new display. Avoid keeping static elements on the screen for long periods of time. If you do, change the channel to something with movement to refresh that section of the screen. Don’t run your TV at maximum brightness for prolonged periods of time. Most importantly, don’t disable your TV’s burn-in protection measures.

In general, it’s usually best to use a computer monitor with a PC. They’re designed with features to improve your computing experience, such as inactivity timers and being able to wake with mouse movement. Connectivity is also a better fit. Most gaming monitors feature native DisplayPort connectivity, which is supported by all modern graphics cards, and may include extras like USB Type-C compatibility for laptops and tablets or built-in USB hubs.

There are cases where opting for a TV makes sense, however. If you need a giant screen, there aren’t many options among gaming monitors and they can be expensive. There are also limited choices for OLED displays and often have trade-offs of their own, so turning to a TV like the LG C2 can be a good alternative.