Gaming monitors are designed to make the output of your graphics card and CPU look as good as possible while gaming. They’re responsible for displaying the final result of all of your computer’s image rendering and processing, yet they can vary widely in their representation of color, motion, and image sharpness.

The major difference between a gaming monitor and a regular office monitor is the type of panel you see. Gaming monitors use an IPS panel which is simply the best for gaming. IPS panels gave faster response time and gave greater speed.

Types

Currently, there are three different types of gaming monitor panels: TN, IPS, and VA. However, the most common types are TN and IPS.

TN

TN stands for twisted nematic. This is a type of LED (a form of LCD) panel display technology. TN panels are characterized as being the fastest and cheapest among the other main types of display panels, VA (vertical alignment) and IPS (in-plane switching).

IPS

IPS monitors or “In-Plane Switching” monitors, leverage liquid crystals aligned in parallel to produce rich colors. IPS panels are defined by the shifting patterns of their liquid crystals. These monitors were designed to overcome the limitations of TN panels.

VA

VA, or vertical alignment, uses vertically aligned crystals that tilt to allow light to pass. While IPS crystals are parallel with the glass substrate, VA crystals are perpendicular to the substrate. Although VA panels aren’t as common as IPS panels for monitors, they’re one of the most common choices for TVs.

History

Joseph Kates created the first gaming monitor. Essentially, it was a 4-meter high computer, with a ‘display’ of lightbulbs, with which you could play tic-tac-toe, the only game the computer could play.