This thorough guide covers everything you need to know about gaming monitors, from refresh rates and response times to panel types and contrast ratios.

Gaming monitors are designed to make the output of your graphics card and CPU look as good as possible while you're playing games. They're responsible for displaying the end result of all the image rendering and processing done by your computer, but they can vary widely in how they perform in terms of color, motion, and image clarity. When considering a gaming monitor, it's worth taking the time to understand all of the features of a gaming monitor so you can translate the specs and marketing of a gaming monitor into actual performance.

Display technology changes over time, but the basic goals of monitor manufacturers remain the same. We'll break down each set of monitor features below and see what they're good for.

Resolution

Resolution is a key feature of any display. It measures the width and height of the screen in pixels or "picture elements" (the tiny glowing dots that make up the image). For example, a 2,560 x 1,440 screen has a total of 3,686,400 pixels.

Common resolutions include 1,920 x 1,080 (sometimes called "full high definition" or FHD), 2,560 x 1,440 ("quad high definition," QHD or "widescreen quad high definition," WQHD), or 3840 x 2160 (UHD or "4K Ultra High Definition"). Ultrawide monitors also come in resolutions of 2560 x 1080 (UW-FHD) and 3440 x 1440 (UW-QHD), 3840x1080 (DFHD), and 5120x1440 (DQHD).

Sometimes manufacturers quote just one measurement for standard resolutions: 1080p and 1440p refer to the height, while 4K refers to the width. Any resolution above 1,280 × 720 is high definition (HD).

The pixels counted in these measurements are usually presented in the same way: squares on a two-dimensional grid. To see this, you can move closer (or zoom in) to the screen until you see individual blocks of color, or zoom in on the image until it becomes "pixelated" and you see a staircase of small squares instead of clear diagonal lines.

As display resolution increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern individual pixels with the naked eye, while the clarity of the image improves.

In addition to increasing onscreen detail for games or movies, higher resolutions have another benefit. They give you more desktop real estate. That means more room to work with windows and applications.

What ls Upscaling?

As you probably already know, a screen with a 4K display resolution doesn't magically make everything it shows look like 4K. If you play a 1080p video stream on it, that content generally won't look as good as a 4K Blu-ray. However, it may still look closer to 4K than before, thanks to a process called upscaling.

Upscaling is a method of scaling lower-resolution content to a higher resolution. When you play a 1080p video on a 4K monitor, the monitor needs to "fill in" all the missing pixels it expects to show (because a 4K monitor has four times as many pixels as a 1080p). The built-in scaler inserts the new pixels by checking the values ​​of the surrounding pixels. HDTVs generally have more sophisticated upscaling (with line sharpening and other improvements) than PC monitors, since the latter generally just turns one pixel into a larger block of identical pixels. Upscaling can cause some blurring and ghosting (ghosting), especially when viewed up close.

Native Resolution

Monitors can also change resolution. Modern screens have a fixed number of pixels, which defines their "native resolution", but can also be set to approach a lower resolution. When zooming out, on-screen objects appear larger and blurrier, screen real estate decreases, and interpolation can cause visible aliasing. (Note that this is not always the case: older analog CRT monitors can actually switch between resolutions without interpolation, as they don't have a fixed number of pixels.)

Scaling

Screens with 4K resolutions and above bring another scaling issue: at UHD, text and interface elements (such as buttons) can start to look small. This is especially true on smaller 4K screens when using programs that don't automatically resize text and UI.

Windows' screen scaling settings can increase the size of text and layout elements, but at the expense of reduced screen real estate. Even with this scaling, the increase in resolution still has a benefit - on-screen content (such as images in an editing program) will still appear at 4K resolution, even if the surrounding menus are rescaled.

Screen Size and PPI

Manufacturers measure screen size diagonally, from corner to corner. A larger screen size coupled with a higher resolution means more usable screen real estate and a more immersive gaming experience.

Gamers sit or stand close to their monitors, typically between 20" and 24" away. This means the screen itself fills more of your field of view than an HDTV (when sitting on a couch) or a smartphone/tablet. (Monitors have the best diagonal screen size to viewing distance ratio among common displays, with the exception of VR headsets). The benefits of 1440p or 4K resolutions are more pronounced in this close-up scenario.

Basically, you want to find a screen where you never feel individual pixels. You can measure pixel density (measured in pixels per inch) using an online tool, which tells you the relative "sharpness" of a screen by determining how closely the pixels are packed together, or use the alternative pixels-per-degree formula, which automatically compares its measurement to the limits of human vision.

Your own eyesight and desktop setup also need to be considered. If you have 20/20 vision and your eyes are about 20" from the screen, a 27" 4K panel will provide an immediate visual upgrade. However, if you know your vision is worse than 20/20, or you prefer to sit farther away than 24", a 1440p panel may look just as good to you.

Aspect Ratio

The aspect ratio of a monitor is the ratio of width to height. A 1:1 screen is a perfect square; square monitors from the 1990s were often 4:3, the "standard" aspect ratio. They have largely been replaced by widescreen (16:9) and some ultrawide (21:9, 32:9, 32:10) aspect ratios.

Modern video games often support a variety of aspect ratios, from widescreen to ultrawide. You can change this from the in-game settings menu.

Most online content, such as YouTube videos, also default to a widescreen aspect ratio. However, you'll still see horizontal black bars on the screen when watching a movie or TV show shot in cinema widescreen (2.39:1, which is wider than 16:9), and vertical black bars when watching smartphone videos shot in the thinner "portrait" mode. These bars preserve the original proportions of the video without stretching or cropping it.

Ultrawide Screens

Why choose an ultrawide screen instead of a regular widescreen? They have several advantages: they fill more of the field of view, providing a closer viewing experience (because 21:9 screens eliminate the "letterbox" black bars of widescreen movies), and they allow you to expand the field of view (FOV) in games without creating a "fisheye" effect. Some first-person gamers prefer a wider FOV to help them spot enemies or immerse themselves in the game environment. (Note, however, that some popular FPS games do not support high FOV settings because they give the player an advantage).

Curved screens are another common feature of ultrawide monitors. This solves a typical problem with larger ultrawide screens: images at the far edges of the screen don't look as sharp as images in the middle. Curved screens help compensate for this and provide a clearer view of the edges of the screen. However, its benefits are most noticeable on larger screens, over 27 inches.

Color

When looking at two monitors side by side, it's sometimes easy to tell which one has more vivid hues, deeper blacks, or more lifelike colors. But it can be hard to piece the picture together in your mind when reading the specs, because there are so many different ways to evaluate a monitor's color. There's no single spec to focus on: contrast, brightness, black level, color gamut, and more all come into play. Before we discuss the larger characteristics of color, let's define each term.

Contrast

One of the most basic measures of monitor performance is contrast, which measures the ratio between the extremes of black and white a screen can display. A baseline contrast ratio of, say, 1,000:1 means the white parts of an image are 1,000 times brighter than the dark parts.

When it comes to contrast, the higher the number, the better. A high contrast ratio of, say, 4,000:1 means highlights are bright, blacks are pitch black, and details in dark areas are still visible. On the other hand, a contrast ratio of 200:1 means blacks look more like gray, and colors look washed out and blurry.

Be careful when an LCD advertises a very high "dynamic contrast ratio," which is achieved by changing the behavior of the backlight. For gaming or everyday use, the standard "static" contrast ratio discussed above is a better indicator of display quality.

Brightness

Brightness is often measured in "luminance," a precise measurement of the amount of light emitted by the screen. It is measured in candelas per square meter (cd/m2), also known as "nits." For HDR displays, VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) has standardized a set of brightness tests using a specific test patch. When comparing brightness specs, check to make sure they use this consistent test platform, rather than a proprietary metric.

Black Level

In all LCD screens, light from the backlight inevitably leaks through the liquid crystals. This provides the basis for contrast: for example, if the screen leaks 0.1% of light in areas that should be black, the contrast ratio is 1,000:1. An LCD screen with zero light leakage would have infinite contrast. However, current LCD technology cannot do this.

"Glow" is a particular problem in dark viewing environments, which means that achieving low black levels is a major selling point for LCD displays. However, LCD screens cannot achieve a black level of 0 nits unless they are completely turned off.

What About OLED Screens?

OLEDs have incredible black levels because they don't use a backlight. When an OLED pixel is not electrically activated, it emits no light at all. OLED screens may advertise black levels of "less than 0.0005 nits" because it's often expensive to make more precise measurements. However, black levels are usually closer to 0 than to 0.0005.

Color Depth

Monitors need to display a wide range of subtle tones. If they can't smoothly transition between slightly different tones, we'll see "banding" on the screen - noticeable changes between two different colors, with noticeably lighter and darker bands where we should see a seamless gradient. This is sometimes called "compressed" color.

The ability of a monitor to display a wide range of slightly different colors without banding and inaccuracies is measured by color depth. Color depth specifies the amount of data (in bits) the screen can use to construct the color of one pixel.

Each pixel on the screen has three color channels - red, green, and blue - which emit light at different intensities to produce (usually) millions of shades. 8-bit color means that 8 bits are used for each color channel. The total number of possible shades in a screen with 8-bit color depth is 28 x 28 x 28 = 16,777,216.

Common color depths:

• 6-bit color = 262,144 colors
• 8-bit color or "True Color" = 16.7 million colors
• 10-bit color or "Deep Color" = 1.07 billion colors

True 10-bit displays are rare — many use forms of internal color processing such as FRC (Frame Rate Control) to approximate greater color depths. A "10-bit" display may be an 8-bit display with an additional FRC stage, often written as "8+2FRC".

What Are FRC and LUTs?

Some cheap LCD panels use 6-bit color and "dithering" to approximate 8-bit color. Dithering in this context means inserting similar alternating colors to trick the eye into seeing different intermediate colors that the monitor cannot accurately display.

Frame rate control (FRC) alternates different colors in each new frame to achieve this. While this can be achieved more cheaply than 8-bit true color, color accuracy suffers, especially in low-light environments. Some screens also have 8-bit color depth and an additional FRC stage (often listed as "8-bit + FRC") to approximate 10-bit color.

Monitors sometimes have lookup tables (LUTs) that correspond to higher color depths, such as 10-bit color. This helps speed up the color correction calculations that occur within the monitor as it converts the color input to a color output suitable for your screen. This intermediate step can help create smoother color transitions and more accurate output. These are usually reserved for more professional-grade monitors, rather than general consumer and gaming monitors.

Color Space

You'll often hear about a monitor's color "space" or "gamut," which is different from a monitor's bit depth. A color space specifies the spectrum of colors that can be displayed, rather than just counting the number of colors.

Your eyes can see a wider color spectrum than current monitors can reproduce. To visualize all visible colors, a standard called CIE 1976 maps them into a grid, creating a horseshoe-shaped graph. The color gamut available to a monitor is shown as a subset of this graph:

Common mathematically defined gamuts include sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3. The first is a common standard for monitors (and the official web color space). The second, wider standard is used primarily by photo and video editing professionals. The third, DCI-P3, is even wider and is often used for HDR content.

A monitor advertised as "99% sRGB" is claiming that the screen covers 99% of the sRGB gamut, which is generally considered indistinguishable from 100% when viewed with the naked eye.

How Do Backlights Determine Color Spaces?

In an LCD screen, the backlight and color filters determine the color space. All light produced by the backlight passes through a color filter with red, green, and blue specks. Narrowing the "bandpass" of this filter limits the wavelengths of light that can pass through, increasing the purity of the final color produced. While this reduces the efficiency of the screen (because the color filter now blocks more of the backlight output), it produces a wider color gamut.

Common backlight technologies include:

• White LED (W-LED) backlight: Blue LEDs coated with yellow phosphor emit white light, which is filtered through red, green, and blue channels to become the final color of the pixel. W-LED backlights produce the standard sRGB gamut color space. Sometimes, special nanoparticle coatings can be applied to W-LED backlights to produce a wider color gamut, usually resulting in wider coverage of the DCI-P3 color space.
• Quantum dot coating (QD): A blue LED backlight shines on green and red nanoparticles that are manufactured to very tight tolerances. They emit green and red light at narrow frequencies. Nanoparticles don’t actually filter out light, which makes the process very efficient. Instead, they convert and re-emit light within a narrow frequency range, resulting in a wide color gamut.
• OLEDs without a backlight can have a wide color gamut comparable to QDs (e.g., 75% of Rec. 2020).

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

HDR monitors display brighter images with higher contrast and preserve more detail in both light and dark areas of the screen. With an HDR monitor, you might be able to better spot objects running through a dark corridor in a horror game, or see more dramatic beams of sunlight in an open-world game.

While they work best with HDR content (which only some games and movies support), these monitors typically support 10-bit color depth and a backlight that supports a wide color gamut, which also improves standard content (SDR). (Note that HDR monitors are typically not true 10-bit color, but rather 8+2FRC monitors that accept a 10-bit input signal).

For LCD monitors, a high-end backlight feature called local dimming is critical to HDR quality. Backlight dimming zones behind the screen control the brightness of groups of LEDs; more dimming zones means more precise control, less "haloing" (bright areas of the image brightening dark areas), and generally improved contrast.

Dimming technologies vary:

• Edge-lit local dimming relies on groups of LEDs clustered at the edge of the screen to brighten or dim the image within what is typically a fairly limited number of dimming zones.
• Full-array local dimming (FALD) is a high-end option that uses more dimming zones (typically hundreds) behind the panel, rather than just at the edges of the screen. As a result, it has more limited control over HDR content and screen dimming.

How Do l Evaluate an HDR Monitor?

Assessing the quality of an HDR display on your own can be difficult. You should rely on HDR standards, such as VESA's DisplayHDR, which measure the relative quality of HDR displays by listing specs like dimming capabilities.
The DisplayHDR standard is more reliable than a spec advertised as "typical" because the wording allows manufacturers to list true averages. Look for a display that meets the minimum specs for the different DisplayHDR levels.

At the low end, DisplayHDR 400 screens can hit 400 nits of peak brightness (versus 300 nits for standard displays), but only require the standard 95% sRGB color gamut and 8-bit color depth. DisplayHDR 400 doesn't require backlight local dimming.

At the high end, DisplayHDR 600 screens are required to hit 600 nits of brightness, 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut (which offers a wider color space), 10-bit color depth, and some form of local dimming.

The OLED standard adds additional requirements to showcase the technology's deeper black levels. In addition to similar peak brightness standards, DisplayHDR True Black 400 and 500 also require black levels to be below 0.0005.

Refresh rate

The refresh rate is how often the entire screen refreshes its image. Higher refresh rates make on-screen motion appear smoother, because the screen can update the position of each object more quickly. This can make it easier for competitive players to track moving enemies in a first-person shooter, or make the screen feel more responsive as you scroll down a web page or open an app on your phone.

Response rates are measured in hertz: For example, a response rate of 120Hz means the monitor refreshes each pixel 120 times per second. While 60Hz used to be the standard for PC monitors and smartphones, manufacturers are increasingly adopting higher refresh rates.

The benefits of jumping from 60Hz to 120Hz or 144Hz are obvious to most players, especially in fast-paced first-person games. (You’ll only see these benefits, however, if you also have a powerful enough GPU to render frames at higher than 60fps at your chosen resolution and quality settings).

Higher refresh rates make it easier for your eyes to track moving objects, make crisp camera motion feel smoother, and reduce perceived motion blur. The online community is split on the improvements that 120Hz and above displays bring. If you’re interested, it’s worth checking it out for yourself to see how much of a difference it can make for you.

What Does Frame Rate Have to Do with Refresh Rate?

Frame rates are measured in frames per second (FPS), and track the number of images drawn by your graphics hardware. This online motion test shows the improvements gamers will see when tracking moving objects at higher frame rates and refresh rates.
However, you will only see those extra frames on screen if your refresh rate matches or exceeds them; likewise, you can only benefit from a high refresh rate screen if your CPU and graphics card can support high frame rates. Plan your build accordingly to get the most out of your hardware.

Response Time

Response time measures the time (in milliseconds) it takes for a single pixel to change color. The lower the response time, the fewer visual artifacts there will be, such as motion blur or "smearing" behind a moving image.

The response time must be fast enough to keep up with the refresh rate. For example, on a 240Hz screen, a new frame is sent to the screen every 4.17 milliseconds (1000/240 = 4.17).

Manufacturers often list "gray-to-gray" response times - that is, the time it takes for a pixel to change from one gray to another. The numbers quoted usually represent the manufacturer's best results from a series of different tests, rather than a reliable average.

An image sharpening process called overdrive can also affect test results. Overdrive applies a higher voltage to the pixels to increase the speed at which the colors change. If carefully adjusted, overdrive can reduce smearing and ghosting (blurring ghosting) that is visible during motion. Otherwise, it can "overshoot" the expected value and cause other visual artifacts.

Turning up the overdrive can produce better results on grayscale tests, but it can also produce visual artifacts that are not disclosed when quoting the best-case numbers for these grayscale tests. Because all factors affect reported response times, it's best to consult an independent reviewer who can measure response times across different manufacturers.

Input Lag

Gamers sometimes confuse response time with input lag, which is a measurement of the delay before your actions appear on the screen, also measured in milliseconds. Input lag is felt rather than seen, and is often a priority for players of fighting games and first-person shooters.

Input lag is a side effect of the monitor's scaler and the processing of the screen's internal electronics. Selecting "Game Mode" on the monitor's adjustment menu will usually turn off image processing features and reduce input lag. Disabling VSync (which prevents certain visual artifacts) in the in-game options menu can also help reduce input lag.

Premium Features

Adaptive Sync

Most gamers will be immediately familiar with screen tearing: a graphical glitch that appears on the screen as a horizontal line where the image above and below it slightly mismatches.

The glitch involves your graphics card and monitor. The GPU draws different frames every second, but the monitor refreshes its screen at a fixed rate. If the GPU overwrites the previous frame in the frame buffer midway while the monitor reads it to refresh the screen, the monitor will display the mismatched image as is. The top of the image may be the new frame, but the bottom will still show the previous frame, creating the "tear."

VSync (vertical sync) offers a solution to this problem. This in-game feature slows down the rate at which frames are drawn to match the monitor's refresh rate. However, VSync can cause stuttering when frame rates fall below that ceiling. (For example, it may suddenly drop to 30fps when the GPU can't deliver 60fps). Increased GPU load can also cause input lag.

While VSync, such as NVIDIA's Adaptive VSync*, has improved, two monitor technologies offer alternative solutions: NVIDIA G-Sync* and AMD Radeon FreeSync*. These technologies force your monitor to sync with your GPU, rather than vice versa.

• G-Sync monitors use NVIDIA's proprietary G-Sync scaling chip to match the monitor refresh rate to the GPU output, predicting the GPU output based on recent performance. It also helps prevent stuttering and input lag, which can be caused by drawing duplicate frames while the first frame is waiting to be displayed.
• AMD Radeon FreeSync monitors operate similarly, matching the display to the GPU output to avoid screen tearing and stuttering. Rather than using a proprietary chip, they are built on the open Adaptive Sync protocol, which has been built into DisplayPort 1.2a and all subsequent DisplayPort revisions. While FreeSync monitors are generally cheaper, their downside is that they are not tested to standards before release and can vary in quality.

What's the Difference Between Adaptive Sync and Variable Refresh Rate?

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) is a general term for technologies that synchronize a display and GPU. Adaptive-Sync is an open protocol included in DisplayPort 1.2a and later. The latest Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA graphics technologies work with Adaptive-Sync displays.

Motion Blur Reduction

Both LCD and OLED use a "sample and hold" method to display moving objects as a series of rapidly refreshed static images. Each sample remains on the screen until the next refresh replaces it. This "persistence" causes motion blur because the human eye wants to track objects smoothly, not see them jump to new positions. Even at high refresh rates, where the image updates more frequently, the underlying sample and hold technology causes motion blur.

Motion blur reduction uses backlight strobing to shorten the time a frame sample is displayed on the screen. The screen goes black after each sample before the next sample is displayed, shortening the time a static image stays on the screen.

This mimics the operation of old CRT monitors, which work differently than current LCD technology. CRT screens are illuminated by rapidly decaying phosphors that provide brief pulses of illumination. This means that for most of the refresh cycle, the screen is actually dark. These rapid pulses actually create a smoother impression of motion than sample and hold, and motion blur reduction replicates this effect.

These features also reduce the brightness of the display because the backlight is rapidly turned off and on. If you plan to use motion blur to reduce backlight flicker, be sure to buy a screen with a higher peak brightness.

These backlights should only be enabled during gaming and fast-moving content, as they intentionally cause backlight flicker, which can be annoying during everyday tasks. They are usually only available at fixed refresh rates (like 120Hz) and cannot work simultaneously with VRR.

Panel Types

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)

These square-shaped computer monitors were common from the 1970s to the early 2000s and are still favored by some gamers today for their low input lag and response time.

CRTs use three bulky electron guns to fire beams to excite red, green, and blue phosphors on the screen. These phosphors decay in milliseconds, meaning the screen is illuminated by a brief pulse each time it refreshes. This creates a smooth illusion of motion, but also causes visible flicker.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

In a TFT LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display), a backlight passes light through a layer of liquid crystals, which distort, turn, or block the light. The liquid crystals themselves don't emit light, a key difference between LCDs and OLEDs.

After passing through the crystals, the light passes through RGB filters (subpixels). Applying a voltage illuminates each subpixel at a different intensity, making the mixed colors look like one glowing pixel.

Older LCDs used cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) as backlights. These large, energy-efficient lamps were unable to control the brightness of smaller areas of the screen and were eventually replaced by smaller, more energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

LCD panels use a variety of technologies, and they vary widely in color reproduction, response time, and input lag, especially among high-end options. However, the following generalizations about panels are generally true:

Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)

OLED screens are self-emissive, meaning they produce their own light, rather than requiring a separate light source like LCD screens. At this point, the application of an electric current causes a layer of organic molecules on the front of the screen to emit light.

The liquid crystals in an LCD can partially block the backlight, causing black areas of an image to appear gray. Since OLEDs have no backlight, "true black" can be achieved by simply turning off a pixel (or at least 0.0005 nits, the lowest measurable brightness).

As a result, OLEDs have very high contrast ratios and vivid colors. Eliminating the backlight also allows them to be thinner than LCDs. Just as LCDs were a thinner, more energy-efficient evolution of CRTs, OLEDs may prove to be a thinner evolution of LCDs. (They can also be more energy-efficient when displaying dark content, such as movies, but less energy-efficient on white screens, such as word processors).

The downsides to the technology include increased cost, the risk of screen burn-in, and a shorter lifespan than older display technologies.

Mounting

Gaming monitors often come with a stand that has adjustable height, tilt, and swivel. These stands help you find an ergonomic position for your monitor and help it fit into different workspaces.

The VESA mounting holes on the back of your monitor determine its compatibility with other stands, such as wall mounts or adjustable monitor arms. Defined by VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association, a group of manufacturers), the standard specifies the distance (in millimeters) between a monitor's mounting holes, as well as the screws needed to mount the monitor.

Ports

You’ll find a plethora of ports on the back or bottom of your monitor. Display ports connect your screen to your PC’s graphics output, while USB and Thunderbolt™ ports provide data and power to external devices.
Display

• VGA (Video Graphics Array): Older monitors may have this older port, a 15-pin analog connection introduced in 1987. It carries video only, with resolutions up to 3840 × 2400.
• Single-link DVI (Digital Video Interface): The oldest display interface found on many modern monitors, this 24-pin digital connection dates back to 1999. It carries video only, and can be connected to VGA or HDMI using an adapter. It supports resolutions up to 1920 × 1200.
• Dual-link DVI: This version doubles the bandwidth of single-link DVI. It can display resolutions up to 2560 × 1600 and supports refresh rates up to 144Hz (1080p).
• HDMI: This ubiquitous interface carries both video and audio, and can connect to gaming consoles. Cables labeled "High Speed ​​HDMI" should work with every HDMI version up to HDMI 2.1.
• DisplayPort: A high-bandwidth port that carries both video and audio. All DisplayPort cables work with all DisplayPort versions up to 2.0, which requires an active cable (one that contains electronic circuitry) to get the full bandwidth. Versions 1.2 and higher allow you to "daisy-chain" multiple monitors together (although this also requires compatible monitors).

Peripherals

• USB: These universal ports carry both data and power. Many monitors allow you to connect a keyboard and mouse to them to free up USB ports on your PC. USB Type-C ports are reversible and can double as DisplayPorts.
• Thunderbolt™ 3 technology: Universal port that uses a USB-C connector that supports DisplayPort 1.2, uses the Thunderbolt™ protocol to carry data at up to 40GBit/s and provide power.

Audio

• Input: 3.5mm jack for connecting your computer's audio cable, allowing you to play sound through the monitor's built-in speakers. Note that HDMI and DisplayPort cables also transmit audio and are a simpler solution for many users.
• Headphones: 3.5mm jack for connecting headphones directly to the monitor, which then transmits the audio signal from the PC.

Conclusion

Determining the configuration of your gaming monitor depends largely on the choices you make for the rest of your computer. Modern monitors can generally help you avoid the dropped frames, input lag, and visual artifacts common with older technology, but the value of added resolution, color depth, and motion smoothing features will vary from gamer to gamer. It's up to you to separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.